Lawyershttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/lawyers
en-usSun, 02 Aug 2015 14:53:13 -0400Sun, 02 Aug 2015 14:53:13 -0400The latest news on Lawyers from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-has-arrested-over-100-lawyers-and-activists-in-an-effort-to-wipe-out-dissent-2015-7China has arrested over 100 lawyers and activists in an effort to wipe out dissenthttp://www.businessinsider.com/china-has-arrested-over-100-lawyers-and-activists-in-an-effort-to-wipe-out-dissent-2015-7
Tue, 14 Jul 2015 22:00:00 -0400Verna Yu
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55a56f09ecad041e4ece0996-840-522/aaaaaa-lawyers.jpg" border="0" alt="aaaaaa lawyers"></p><p>More than&nbsp;100 people were swept up in an unprecedented police crackdown on mainland human rights advocates on the weekend, with six – including four lawyers – criminally detained in what state media said was a nationwide operation to smash a “criminal gang”.</p>
<p>In an article on Sunday&nbsp;headlined “Uncovering the dark story of ‘rights defence’.”, spanning two-thirds of its second page,&nbsp;<em>People’s Daily&nbsp;</em>said the Ministry of Public Security launched the operation to “smash a major criminal gang that had used the Beijing Fengrui law firm as a platform since July 2012 to draw attention to sensitive cases, seriously disturbing social order”.</p>
<p>The article said the firm’s director Zhou Shifeng, his assistant Liu Sixin, lawyers Wang Quanzhang, Huang Liqun, Wang Yu and her husband Bao Longjun were in criminal detention for “seriously violating the law”. It did not specify a charge. On the mainland, police can detain suspects for up to 37 days before prosecutors approve their formal arrests.</p>
<p>It said “the criminal gang” comprised Zhou, Wang Yu, Wang Quanzhang, Huang as well as Liu, Bao and high-profile activist Wu Gan, who masterminded many plots in the name of “rights defence, justice and public interest”. It accused them of “colluding with petitioners to disturb social order and to reach their goals with ulterior motives”.</p>
<p>Wu, an online activist nicknamed “Super Vulgar Butcher”, was formally arrested a week ago on charges of “inciting subversion” and “provoking trouble”. He also worked at Fengrui and Wang Yu was his defence lawyer.</p>
<p><em>People’s Daily</em>&nbsp;said Wu was “a key player” in drawing a huge public outcry over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man, Xu Chunhe, by a policeman in Qingan, Heilongjiang , in May, offering 100,000 yuan (HK$126,000) for any footage showing the incident. Other rights lawyers were accused of involvement. “These lawyers publicly challenged the court … and mobilised troublemakers to rally petitioners … outside the court,” it said. “They are the direct pushers.”</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55a57143eab8eaf43ebb2505-1200-858/rtx1k7n3.jpg" border="0" alt="RTX1K7N3"></p>
<p>The six people criminally detained were among over 100 lawyers and rights advocates taken away, summoned or detained by police over the weekend. At least three law firms were also searched. Many of the detainees had signed a statement condemning Wang Yu’s &nbsp;disappearance early on Thursday after her electricity was cut and her home broken into.</p>
<p>Late Saturday, lawyer Sui Muqing was put under “residential surveillance at a designated location” – a form of police detention that can last up to six months – for alleged “incitement to subvert state power”, according to a police document.</p>
<p>By 10 p.m. Sunday, 106 people from 15 cities and provinces had been detained, summoned, questioned or were missing, said the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group. It said 82 had been released.</p>
<p>But of those released, at least three were taken away for a second time, said a lawyer, who declined to be named. The family of lawyer Li Fangping said he returned home late Saturday after having been questioned by police in Jiangxi province for three hours but police took him away again early the next morning. He was released again late on Sunday.</p>
<p>Lawyer Wang Cheng, who was released on Saturday after being questioned by police, had his home searched by police on Sunday, the same day that lawyer Li Jinxing was taken away for questioning, another released lawyer said.</p>
<p>Teng Biao, visiting fellow at Harvard Law School, said the Qingan incident was only a pretext for action against rights lawyers and activists, who have long been seen as a thorn in the side of the authorities. He said the crackdown on the lawyers made a mockery of the authorities’ claim to “rule the country by law”.</p>
<p>Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, said the action showed the Ministry of Public Security’s interpretation of “disturbing public order” was ever-expanding. “That these lawyers are a ‘major criminal gang’ is a new and serious allegation, one that demonstrates the authorities’ willingness to warp the law beyond all recognition,” she said.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/s?q=china+lawyer&vertical=&author=&contributed=1&sort=date#ixzz3ftrBoJom" >China is trying to silence an American journalist by making his family disappear </a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/china-has-arrested-over-100-lawyers-and-activists-in-an-effort-to-wipe-out-dissent-2015-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/underground-drones-race-over-90-mph-2015-7">Watch these drones race underground at speeds over 90 mph</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-cutler-named-jpmorgan-vice-chairman-2015-7Meet JPMorgan's newest vice chairman—a former SEC director who investigated Enron and WorldComhttp://www.businessinsider.com/steve-cutler-named-jpmorgan-vice-chairman-2015-7
Mon, 06 Jul 2015 11:38:00 -0400Julia La Roche
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/559a9d856bb3f73b64804f01-715-536/steve-cutler.png" border="0" alt="Steve Cutler"></p><p>JPMorgan Chase has appointed its general counsel, Stephen M. Cutler, to vice chairman, the bank said in <a href="http://investor.shareholder.com/jpmorganchase/releases.cfm?NavSection=">a press release.</a></p>
<p><span>Cutler's appointment comes a few weeks after Jimmy Lee, the bank's beloved legendary dealmaker/vice chairman&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jimmy-lee-passed-away-2015-6">unexpectedly died</a>&nbsp;last month.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As vice chairman, Cutler will serve as an adviser to JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon and continue assist with legal and regulatory matters, the bank said.&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><br></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Cutler's new role will take effect early next year, the press release indicates.</span>&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Stacey Friedman, the general counsel for the corporate and investment bank, will assume the role of the firm's general counsel early next year. Friedman joined JPMorgan in 2012 from Sullivan &amp; Cromwell where she was a partner in the firm's litigation group. She received her JD from Duke University School of Law.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>"We are fortunate to have two such superb executives in Steve and Stacey," JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement.&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"Steve has done a simply outstanding job for nearly nine years heading our Legal function during some of the most challenging times in our history. &nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"In the face of enormous pressures and challenges, he has been the consummate lawyer and General Counsel—handling all that has come before him with great judgment, integrity and professionalism, and all with a relentless focus on doing what's best for the firm. &nbsp;I tried to convince Steve to stay on as our General Counsel for even longer, but he said next year is the right time for him to try something different."</span></p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/559aad1beab8ea7f2a7254a7-496-372/stacey-friedman-2.png" border="0" alt="stacey friedman">Cutler <a href="http://investor.shareholder.com/jpmorganchase/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=221763">joined JPMorgan</a> in 2007 from the law firm of WilmerHale in DC where he was a partner and head of the securities department. Prior to that, he was the director the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division from 2001 until 2005. During his tenure at the SEC, he oversaw the <a href="http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/CBL_Bios/Stephen_Cutler.pdf">investigations of Enron and WorldCom</a>. Before joining the SEC in 1999, <a href="http://investor.shareholder.com/jpmorganchase/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=221763">he spent 11 years</a> at&nbsp;<span>Wilmer, Cutler &amp; Pickering in D.C.</span></p>
<p><span>He graduated from Yale Law where he was the editor of the Yale Law Journal. He also finished his undergraduate bachelor's degree (summa cum laude) at Yale.</span></p>
<p>Here's JPMorgan's&nbsp;<a href="http://investor.shareholder.com/jpmorganchase/releases.cfm?NavSection=">press release:</a>&nbsp;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) announced today that Stacey Friedman, General Counsel of the company's Corporate &amp; Investment Bank, will succeed Steve Cutler as General Counsel of the firm early next year, when Mr. Cutler will be appointed Vice Chairman of the firm. Ms. Friedman will report to Mr. Cutler and act as his deputy for the rest of this year, and she will join the company's firm-wide Operating Committee next year when her new role becomes effective. &nbsp;Both Mr. Cutler and Ms. Friedman will report to Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon next year in their new roles.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Jamie Dimon said: &nbsp;"We are fortunate to have two such superb executives in Steve and Stacey. &nbsp;Steve has done a simply outstanding job for nearly nine years heading our Legal function during some of the most challenging times in our history. &nbsp;In the face of enormous pressures and challenges, he has been the consummate lawyer and General Counsel -- handling all that has come before him with great judgment, integrity and professionalism, and all with a relentless focus on doing what's best for the firm. &nbsp;I tried to convince Steve to stay on as our General Counsel for even longer, but he said next year is the right time for him to try something different."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Fortunately, we are blessed with another extraordinary talent, Stacey Friedman, to succeed Steve as General Counsel," Mr. Dimon continued. &nbsp;"Stacey joined our company three years ago from Sullivan &amp; Cromwell, where she spent more than a year working full-time with our company on matters ranging from mortgage-backed securities to our purchase of Washington Mutual. &nbsp;She is recognized throughout the legal and finance communities and across our company as an outstanding legal mind and a first-rate executive. &nbsp;Steve recruited Stacey to our firm and highly recommended her to me and our Board as a great successor. We couldn't agree more."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Mr. Cutler, in his role next year as Vice Chairman of the Company, will act as a senior advisor to Jamie Dimon and other executives across the firm, as well as to the company's Board of Directors. &nbsp;He will continue to assist on complex legal issues, including key matters that are already in progress. &nbsp;Cutler is expected to advise on important corporate governance and shareholder matters, as well as regulatory issues and culture initiatives.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-cutler-named-jpmorgan-vice-chairman-2015-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facts-about-chinas-economy-2015-5">11 facts that show how different China is from the rest of the world</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/9-books-that-new-law-students-should-read-2015-79 books that new law students should readhttp://www.businessinsider.com/9-books-that-new-law-students-should-read-2015-7
Mon, 06 Jul 2015 08:57:58 -0400Michael Krauss
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4d67d8574bd7c89934060000-590-443/sdf152850884_75933f0ef7_b.jpg" border="0" alt="law school student"></p><p>As a professor of law, I am naturally biased in favor of my profession.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the naysayers, law students and lawyers commit to the pursuit of justice against obstacles that yield only to the keenest and, one hopes, most ethical minds.</p>
<p>Yet the study of law is in large part a matter of reading.</p>
<p>Lots of reading.</p>
<p>But not all legal reading need be as dry as a prospectus or as weighty as a Supreme Court ruling. Much of the law can be absorbed through great literature and thoughtful nonfiction. Indeed, I suggest that newly minted law students spend the summer before their classes begin with the following nine works (roughly one a week) as preparation for entering what remains the noblest of professions.</p>
<p>Whether you're a soon-to-be law student or a citizen interested in better understanding our justice system, you could do worse than to spend this summer reading these books. Individually each work is excellent. Collectively they constitute an overview of the values and challenges of the legal profession.</p>
<p>1. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Blood-Truman-Capote/dp/0679745580/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1436187033&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=truman+capote">Truman Capote, "In Cold Blood,"</a> 1966. Capote's masterful account of the 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter and his family in Holcomb, Kan., "In Cold Blood" is a study in evil. It is also a provocative examination of our criminal justice system and capital punishment.</p>
<p>2. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lawfare-Against-Amendment-Reporting-Islamist/dp/0982294794/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1436187069&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Brooke+Goldstein+and+Aaron+Eitan+Meyer">Brooke Goldstein and Aaron Eitan Meyer, "Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech,"</a> 2011. "Lawfare," the use of litigation as a weapon to silence and punish an opponent, is a significant challenge to free speech and rule of law today. Bad lawyers created lawfare; good lawyers must combat this subversion of the goals of our profession.</p>
<p>3. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Mockingbird-Harper-Lee/dp/0446310786/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1436187091&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=to+kill+a+mockingbird+by+harper+lee">Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird,"</a> 1960. Read this high school favorite again, and this time focus on the jurists: the judge, the prosecutor and defense attorney Atticus Finch himself. Did Atticus react ethically to the racism of the system? How should you behave, as a lawyer, when presented with a case of flagrant injustice?</p>
<p>4. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bramble-Bush-Our-Law-Study/dp/1610271343/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1436187115&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Karl+N.+Llewellyn%2C+%22The+Bramble+Bush%2C%22">Karl N. Llewellyn, "The Bramble Bush,"</a> 1930. This collection of lectures was delivered to the entering class at Columbia Law School in 1929. It is partly a pedagogical case-briefing primer, partly a broadly jurisprudential analysis of the concept of law. In the words of my law school teacher Grant Gilmore, "They are all informed with Llewellyn's infectiously exciting and only occasionally irritating personality. They are alive with the buoyant optimism which their author felt as he stood, quite consciously, at a decisive turning point in American legal thought and happily surveyed the future."</p>
<p>5. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Billy-Budd-Sailor-Enriched-Classics/dp/1416523723/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1436187135&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Herman+Melville%2C+%22Billy+Budd%2C+Sailor%2C%22">Herman Melville, "Billy Budd, Sailor," </a>1924. This novella, published posthumously, is a magnificent examination of the role of a judge. Is "judicial restraint" possible? Is it advisable? What is the relation between justice and adjudication? This short read (about a drumhead court-martial at sea) is a masterpiece on legal interpretation.</p>
<p>6. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Federalist-Papers-Signet-Classics/dp/0451528816/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1436187190&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Publius%2C+%22The+Federalist+Papers%2C%22">Publius, "The Federalist Papers,"</a> 1787-1788. "Publius" — in reality Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay — published 85 short essays promoting the ratification of the proposed Constitution of the new United States. These philosophical gems today form the bedrock of the American republic.</p>
<p>7. <a href="http://faculty.law.miami.edu/mcoombs/Schlitz.htm">Patrick J. Schiltz, "On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession,"</a> Vanderbilt Law Review, Volume 52, 1999. Let this be the first law review article you ever read. Schiltz, today a U.S. district judge, succinctly lays out the promise and perils of our profession. Read it now, before you start law school, to achieve the former and avoid the latter.</p>
<p>8. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Walden-Two-Hackett-Classics-Skinner/dp/0872207781/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1436187315&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=B.F.+Skinner%2C+%22Walden+Two%2C%22">B.F. Skinner, "Walden Two,"</a> 1948. Politicians, many of them lawyers, are vulnerable to the hubristic belief that additional laws will mold people to do the right thing. Skinner's novel depicts a utopia where citizens, lacking free will, happily respond to government-created incentives and never commit evil deeds. "Walden Two" is, I think, best seen as dystopia — a scary description of the premises of social-legal planning.</p>
<p>9. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/DAMAGES-Barry-Werth/dp/1416594914/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1436187305&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Barry+Werth%2C+%22Damages%2C%22">Barry Werth, "Damages,"</a> 1998. This superb journalistic effort describes a tragedy that morphed into what was then the biggest medical malpractice settlement in the history of Connecticut. Werth's masterful presentation shows us tort law in action, as seen in practice and from both plaintiffs' and defendants' perspectives.</p>
<p>Future law students, I understand that this list may seem like a tall order given the many law school prep books you might feel pressured to purchase. Yet I am confident that your summer is much better spent exercising your intellect rather than mapping the minutiae of law school culture.</p>
<p>You've gotten to yes — you're going to law school. So relax and hit the beach, but bring some good books with you. You might even enjoy yourself.<img class="nc_pixel" src="https://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT1mODYzY2E1ZDJlY2IyNzYyYjhhYTQzNjM4NDE0YzkzNSZwdWJsaXNoZXI9NzMwZWI4NmFiNTlmMGQ0MTkyNmFjNjViMDFmODNlMmY=" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" style="line-height: 1.5em;"></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/9-books-that-new-law-students-should-read-2015-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/asapscience-science-finding-predictions-youtube-2015-3">The coolest science guys on YouTube predict the next big discoveries — and they are quite morbid</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/middle-class-lawyers-are-a-dying-breed-2015-6Middle class lawyers are a dying breedhttp://www.businessinsider.com/middle-class-lawyers-are-a-dying-breed-2015-6
Wed, 24 Jun 2015 13:00:00 -0400Benjamin H. Barton, "Glass Half Full"
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/558989a1ecad047e59af4d51-1200-924/amal-clooney-11.jpg" border="0" alt="amal clooney"></p><p>The middle class of American lawyers is hollowing out.</p>
<p>Every year since 1967 the IRS has collected and released data about the tax returns of two different groups of lawyers: solo practitioners and law firm partners.</p>
<p>Adjusted for inflation, in 1967 law firm partners earned roughly $173,000 and solo practitioners earned $74,580.</p>
<p>Both of these amounts were above the median income, and while partners were wealthier, there was not an unimaginable gap between the two groups.</p>
<p>By 2012, solo practitioners had seen their incomes fall to $49,130, a 34% decrease, while partners earned $349,000, a 100% increase.</p>
<p>$49,130 is not the starting salary for solo practitioners. It is the average income of all 354,000 lawyers who filed as solo practitioners in 2012, including those who have practiced law their whole lives.</p>
<p>By comparison, the average starting salary of a 2012 college graduate was $44,000 and the median household income in the U.S. was over $51,000 that year.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/558960de6da81163025f9064-333-442/screen shot 2015-06-23 at 9.35.35 am.png" border="0" alt="Screen Shot 2015 06 23 at 9.35.35 AM" style="color: #222222; line-height: 22.5px;"></p>
<p>And it is not like these lawyers earn less because their jobs are easy: being a solo practitioner is really hard! These lawyers must stay abreast of lots of different areas of the law and help real people with serious problems on a limited budget.</p>
<p>In 2012 partners in law firms earned more than seven times what a solo practitioner earned. These IRS numbers actually understate the discrepancy, because the IRS includes all law firm partners, from small town partnerships to mega-firms in New York.</p>
<p>If you use the average earnings of equity partners from the fifty most profitable law firms the gap widens considerably. In 2012 the wealthiest American law firm partners earned $1.6 million, thirty-two times what a solo practitioner averaged.</p>
<p>Such is the duality of the information age and income inequality. American lawyers used to be able to count on a middle class existence. Now law school is much more of a high stakes gamble.</p>
<p>Some law graduates may become very wealthy indeed, and some will still be middle class, but many more will be saddled with massive debt and little hope for a steady income.</p>
<p><em>Adapted from "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0190205563/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0190205563&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=thebusiinsi-20&amp;linkId=KKTOIOJHTDK42ITA">Glass Half Full: The Decline and Rebirth of the Legal Profession</a>" by Benjamin H. Barton.</em></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lawyers-beware-the-accountants-are-coming-after-your-business-2015-3" >LAWYERS BEWARE: The accountants are coming after your business</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/middle-class-lawyers-are-a-dying-breed-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/highest-paying-jobs-openings-career-employment-2015-6The 9 highest-paying jobs with openings right nowhttp://www.businessinsider.com/highest-paying-jobs-openings-career-employment-2015-6
Wed, 03 Jun 2015 11:28:00 -0400Jacqui Frank
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<p>Glassdoor put together a list of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-highest-paying-job-with-openings-2015-2">highest-paying jobs with the most openings</a> — here are the top nine.</p>
<p><em>Produced by Jacqui Frank. Special thanks to Julie Bort. </em></p>
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Sun, 03 May 2015 10:10:00 -0400Shane Ferro
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5543a32269bedd236a01cedf-914-685/legally-blonde-elle-woods-reese-witherspoon-5.jpg" border="0" alt="legally blonde elle woods reese witherspoon"></p><p>Two lawyers in Washington, DC, were fed up with having to be "on" all the time at the firms where they worked. So they started their own.</p>
<p>Maria Simon and Rebecca Gellar are partners at the Gellar Law Group, which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/business/a-woman-led-law-firm-that-lets-partners-be-parents.html">Noam Scheiber profiled in the New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>They work 60-70 hour weeks, but they often work from home,&nbsp;<span>have no permanent office space, take afternoons off to go to their children's school events, and generally experiment with what it means to have a flexible work schedule in a notoriously demanding, client-focused profession.</span></p>
<p>Ironically, starting a small firm so that it could have family-friendly practices made it harder to be family-friendly in some ways. With only two lawyers, it's hard to make ends meet when one takes time off:&nbsp;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Large firms have the resources to accommodate lawyers’ family obligations. They just aren’t very hospitable in practice. Nationwide, 98 percent of law firms officially allow their lawyers to work reduced schedules, according to the National Association for Law Placement; only 6 percent of lawyers actually work part time. By contrast, many small firms have the right inclinations but lack the resources to follow through.</p>
<p><span><span>But the two make it work, Scheiber writes. Their rates are reasonable (for lawyers), and they make enough money, if only half of what they might at a big firm.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The conclusion of the article is powerful, particularly for those of us who spend a lot of time thinking about families can fit into American working life.</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">It’s a contemporary daydream to wonder what the workplace might look like if it were run entirely by women, or at least by fully engaged parents. The answer, it seems, is this: There would be no revolution. Working parents would still be exhausted and distracted and anxious about falling short in every aspect of their lives. Ms. Simon says she sleeps fewer than six hours most nights, and she is frequently awakened after nodding off by the impact of her Kindle on her forehead. <strong>But it would help at the margins. And the margins are very likely to be the difference between an impossible combination of professional ambition and parental devotion and a manageable one, if only barely so</strong>. &nbsp;</p>
<p>It's possible that all we really need is change at the margins.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pop-up-shop-lessthan100-charges-women-less-than-men-2015-4" >This store charges women 24% less than men for a reason</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/two-lawyers-making-work-life-work-2015-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/women-apologize-sorry-more-men-2014-10">They've Figured Out Why Women Say 'Sorry' More Than Men</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/accountant-took-on-halliburton-and-won-2015-4The gripping story of how an accountant took on Halliburton and wonhttp://www.businessinsider.com/accountant-took-on-halliburton-and-won-2015-4
Tue, 21 Apr 2015 16:23:56 -0400Jesse Eisinger
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5536591d69bedd9641514efb-1075-537/menendez-1.png" border="0" alt="Menendez"></p><p></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The email that ruined Tony Menendez's life arrived on a warm and sunny February afternoon in 2006. Menendez is, by nature, precise and logical, but his first instinct was somewhat irrational. He got up to close the door to his office, as if that might somehow keep the message from speeding across cyberspace. Then he sat down at his desk to puzzle out what had just happened.</span></p>
<p>The email was sent by Mark McCollum, Halliburton's chief accounting officer, and a top-ranking executive at Halliburton, where Menendez worked. It was addressed to much of the accounting department. "The SEC has opened an inquiry into the allegations of Mr. Menendez," it read. Everyone was to retain their documents until further notice.</p>
<p>Panic gripped Menendez. How could McCollum have learned he had been talking to the SEC? The substance of the email was true. After months of raising concerns inside the company, Menendez had filed a complaint with regulators and Halliburton's audit committee that accused the giant oil services company of violating accounting rules. But those complaints were supposed to be kept strictly confidential. Did the agency violate that trust? Did a board member? Somebody had talked.</p>
<p>Ten minutes passed, maybe fifteen. Menendez finally could move. He got up, opened his office door carefully and looked out. The floor normally bustled at that hour in the mid-afternoon. It had cleared out. He turned around quickly, grabbed his computer and rushed out of the heavily secured Halliburton complex north of Sugarland, Texas.</p>
<p>Menendez drove around for hours. He doesn't remember much about where he went or for how long. At some point, he called his wife.</p>
<p>"Ondy," he cried out to her, frantic. "They outed me!"</p>
<p>As shocked as Menendez was, his wife had seen something like this coming. Tony was a perennial optimist, even naïve. He always thought the company would do the right thing and fix its accounting problem. More jaded, his wife was prepared for the worst. She'd even urged Tony to start secretly taping his bosses.</p>
<p>"Is anyone following you?" she asked. "Make sure."</p>
<p>Menendez looked around, seeing only a blur of cars pass at the beginnings of evening rush hour. He didn't think anyone was tailing him. Then again, how would he know? He needed a lawyer – right now. Only months into the best job he'd ever had, he was in the most trouble of his professional career.</p>
<p>Menendez quickly googled "whistleblower" and "lawyer" on his phone and came up with Philip Hilder, the attorney who had represented the Enron whistleblower, Sherron Watkins. He placed the call and got through. Hilder heard Menendez out and then told him to listen carefully. Hilder instructed Menendez not to tell anyone, not even his wife. Too late for that, and he wouldn't have kept it from Ondy anyway. They were partners.</p>
<p>"Ok. Then don't talk on the phone anymore. Don't talk in your office. Don't talk in your house," Hilder continued.</p>
<p>"How quickly can you come in to see me?"</p>
<p>I met Tony and Ondy Menendez this past winter, in a suburb less than an hour outside Detroit. Now 44, Menendez speaks earnestly and insistently, with the carefully chosen words one would expect from an accountant. His cheeks carry a tinge of pink and, at the slightest smile, his eyes are consumed by crow's feet. He hid a bulky frame with a corduroy jacket over a black V-neck sweater.</p>
<p>They told me about their long and agonizing fight against a powerful corporation. It's a story of what it takes to be a whistleblower in America – and what it takes out of you.</p>
<p>Many whistleblowers come undone after they launch their fights. They have trouble keeping their jobs, their marriages, their sobriety. Even friends who are sympathetic often see them as pains in the ass. They are forever marked by a scarlet "W." And while whistleblowers naturally start off more skeptical than the average, the experience pushes some into often justifiable paranoia. If you want to know why whistleblowers can seem a little crazy, it's because anybody who is not a little bit crazy would back away from the ordeal of confronting a corporate behemoth or grinding government bureaucracy.</p>
<p>There's nothing crazy about Menendez, however, beyond an optimism that persists even when the facts don't warrant it. Throughout the whole struggle, he just knew that somehow, sometime, the world would come around to seeing he was right about Halliburton.</p>
<p>Menendez grew up in Houston, the son of a jovial construction worker with an eighth-grade education. His father had once operated several chicken restaurants and there was a story about almost getting Bob Hope to be a partner, but it never happened. His father had lost it all.</p>
<p>His mother was an insatiably curious, perpetual graduate student in education. The eighth of 11 kids, Menendez was the only college graduate. Ondy, who grew up in Claude, a small town in North Texas, also was the only one in her family to graduate college. Serious and cautious, she has sedate brown hair that goes just below her chin with fine streaks of gray and wears red lipstick. Only faint hints remain of the 16-year-old girl who drove her Trans Am too fast down North Texas country roads.</p>
<p>At the University of Houston, Menendez dreamed of a career as a scientist but those plans were derailed when his girlfriend became pregnant. He switched to accounting because he could get a job more easily, married his girlfriend and had a daughter. Eager to establish himself in a solid profession, Menendez took a job at Ernst &amp; Young as an auditor, a job that required a great deal of travel. One day, Menendez was on a business trip a hundred miles from Houston, where they were living. He called home and, unusually, there was no answer. He returned home to discover that his wife had left and when he finally spoke to her a few weeks later, she told him she couldn't be a mother right then. His daughter was only about a year and a half old. Menendez raised her by himself for the next year and a half. Eventually, his wife returned and they divorced.</p>
<p>Menendez worked various accounting jobs before landing an executive position at Halliburton in March 2005. The job came with a fancy title, Director of Technical Accounting Research and Training, and was the most responsibility he'd ever had. Only months earlier, Halliburton had settled with the SEC after a two-year accounting probe. In hiring him, Mark McCollum told Menendez that he should be his "Smokey the Bear," helping Halliburton prevent accounting fires from flaring. Menendez was 34, and now remarried to Ondy. They had two young children. He felt his life was on course.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55365f806bb3f7385067867b-818-409/menendez2-3.jpg" border="0" alt="Menendez2"></p>
<p>It didn't last long. After just a few months on the job, Menendez began to worry that Halliburton was violating some of the most basic accounting rules.</p>
<p>A crucial issue in all forms of accounting is how and when a company can count a transaction as revenue. The rules provide a certain amount of flexibility, with companies allowed to "book" at least some of the revenue from a sale before the customer pays in full. Deciding in which quarter a particular sale falls can move mountains of money since Wall Street investors watch revenue as closely as profits and hammer the share prices of companies that fall short.</p>
<p>Halliburton's books are particularly sensitive to the intricacies of accounting. The company enters into long-term contracts with energy giants like Royal Dutch Shell or BP to find and exploit huge oil and gas fields. It sells services – the expertise of its geologists and engineers. Halliburton also builds massive and expensive machinery that its professionals use to provide those services. Then, the company charges its customers for that equipment, which has particularly high profit margins. The company's accountants had been allowing the company to count the full value of the equipment right away as revenue, sometimes even before it had assembled the equipment. But the customers could walk away in the middle of the contracts. And Menendez realized that if the equipment were damaged, Halliburton, not the customer, was on the hook.</p>
<p>There had been a crackdown on this kind of accounting since a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&amp;sid=am_McfuM6i4o">2003 SEC accounting bulletin</a>. Other oil and gas services companies were falling into line. With that in mind, Menendez recommended the company wait until the work was completed to book the equipment sales as revenue.</p>
<p>Top Halliburton accounting executives agreed with Menendez's analysis, including McCollum, the company's chief accounting officer. But according to Menendez, they dragged their feet on implementing a change that was certain to slow revenue growth. (In an email response to detailed questions, a Halliburton spokeswoman wrote, "The accounting allegations were made by Mr. Menendez almost nine years ago and were promptly reviewed by the company and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company's accounting was appropriate and the SEC closed its investigation. We have no further comment on the matter." The corporation's auditor, KPMG, declined to comment for this story.)</p>
<p>Later, some outside experts would also agree with Menendez. "Under the accounting standards, Halliburton's revenue recognition was not appropriate," said Doug Carmichael, the former chief accountant for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the regulator for auditing firms, who served as an expert witness for Menendez.</p>
<p>During the summer of 2005, Menendez went on a worldwide tour of Halliburton facilities with an executive who worked for him, James Paquette. They visited Aberdeen, Scotland, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Both were deeply troubled by what they saw and heard.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/553660f769bedda366514ef6-1200-924/halliburton-10.jpg" border="0" alt="Halliburton">At a dark, basement pub in Aberdeen, Menendez and Paquette drank warm beer and wrestled with their problem. Paquette looked up to him. "Tony is a geek among geeks and I say that with great affection," he told me. "He's a smart man, well read." Paquette credits Menendez with teaching him how to research accounting issues thoroughly.</p>
<p>Paquette agreed the company was booking its revenue incorrectly. But other groups in accounting were fighting them.</p>
<p>"What if we bring all this to their attention and they don't do anything about it? What happens then?" Paquette asked his boss.</p>
<p>Menendez replied that he hoped that didn't happen but that there were "avenues for us to hold up our integrity," Paquette recalled in an interview with me.</p>
<p>Menendez talked it over with Ondy. Accounting fraud was an increasingly public issue. Enron, the Houston-based energy trading giant, had blown up in a massive accounting scandal a few years earlier. News of investigations and trials filled the daily newspapers. The couple talked about Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, top Enron executives who had been charged with accounting fraud. WorldCom, Adelphia, Tyco – executives were being charged with accounting violations. Ondy told Menendez he had to protect himself. If this ever got discovered, he could end up being the fall guy.</p>
<p>Neither of them had wealth or family to fall back on. And they had young kids to care for. Nonetheless, Ondy told her husband he should neither participate in fraud nor leave Halliburton.</p>
<p>"You shouldn't have to run," she told him.</p>
<p>But from now on, she said, he had to be much more careful. For one thing, he needed to start tape-recording his bosses.</p>
<p>On July 18, 2005, Tony Menendez turned on a digital recorder, put it in the front pocket of his slacks, and, sweating a bit, walked into a meeting with McCollum, the chief accounting officer. The accounting issue was complicated and executives throughout the accounting department were wrestling with it. Menendez had circulated a memo on the issue. McCollum told Menendez that he was right on the merits.</p>
<p>"Now that your memo is out, quite frankly it's a good memo, okay?" McCollum <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1694679-secret-recording-transcripts.html">can be heard saying on the scratchy recording</a>. He and a colleague had had "a lot of conversations about it and ah we think that <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1694679-secret-recording-transcripts.html">your conclusion is appropriate</a>."</p>
<p>But McCollum told Menendez his approach was wrong. He was making his colleagues feel stupid. He needed to be more collegial. "They didn't just fall off the turnip truck," he told Menendez. The problem was that the Halliburton team, working with the auditors from KPMG, one of the major national accounting firms, had reached a different conclusion. "Could their facts have been incomplete? Yes, absolutely. And could KPMG's national office been <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1694679-secret-recording-transcripts.html">smoking dope</a>? Yes they could," McCollum said. But Menendez would have to be delicate if he wanted to change the company's practices.</p>
<p>Halliburton, McCollum explained, was a huge organization with lots of "communication issues." To succeed, Menendez would need to be "politically sensitive." And – here McCollum was emphatic – don't put things in writing, admonishing Menendez that "you have to be <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1694679-secret-recording-transcripts.html">incredibly circumspect</a> about the use of email to communicate, uh, with everybody."</p>
<p>At this stage, McCollum seemed to want to help Menendez, albeit with a warning. McCollum told him he wasn't "asking you to compromise your ethics and I'm not asking you to compromise the position that you feel strongly about."</p>
<p>Menendez didn't need to be told that. But by the fall, he saw his superiors beginning to wobble. Halliburton officials had realized this wasn't going to be a trivial issue at all. Indeed, it could amount to billions of dollars. About 25 percent of Halliburton Energy Services then-$10 billion in revenue came from equipment sales. Even worse, no one had kept track of how much equipment Halliburton had in its warehouses.</p>
<p>Finally, the top accounting executives changed their minds and decided the original approach was fine after all. Halliburton executives coined a phrase to justify the company's accounting treatment. The equipment sitting in Halliburton's warehouses became "customer-owned inventory." Menendez searched the accounting literature for such a phrase, but found nothing.</p>
<p>Menendez was furious and after several days of agonizing he filed a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1694677-menendezs-whistleblower-complaint-to-the-sec.html">confidential complaint</a> with the SEC in November 2005. Within a few days, the agency flew him up to Fort Worth and he met with investigators. Meeting with government regulators terrified him. He wasn't proud of having recorded his bosses, but he had felt he needed to. During his meetings, he calmed down. The regulators encouraged him to go to the Halliburton board's audit committee. Menendez assumed the regulators would take action. One government attorney was so enthusiastic, he told Menendez, "This is gold!"</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/55365fbc69bedd4f5f514ef9-1200-600/halliburton-8.jpg" border="0" alt="Halliburton"></p>
<p>For a couple of months, nothing seemed to happen. But then Menendez heard rumblings in the office that the SEC was poking around. On the morning of Feb. 4, 2006, Menendez snuck off while Ondy was still asleep to a side room in their house. There, he fired off an email to alert the audit committee of Halliburton's board of directors to the company's billion-dollar accounting problem. When he emerged sheepishly, he woke Ondy up and confessed immediately, like a child who has palmed an extra cookie for dessert. She was apoplectic.</p>
<p>"You're going to regret this!" she shouted. She thought he had a chance to stay anonymous with the SEC, but not the company's board of directors.</p>
<p>"That's their job! They'll want to know!" Menendez argued back.</p>
<p>It was one of their worst fights in the whole ordeal. "I knew what was next and I was right," Ondy says now.</p>
<p>Unbeknownst to Menendez, his complaint went to the Halliburton legal department as well as the board committee, an apparent violation of corporate policy. The audit committee was required to keep such reports confidential. A few days later, the SEC notified the company that it had opened an investigation into the company's revenue recognition. Then on February 8 came The Email. Halliburton's general counsel circulated a note that "the SEC is investigating Mr. Menendez's complaints" to the company's chief financial officer, KPMG, other top executives and McCollum, the chief accounting officer. McCollum forwarded it to at least 15 of Menendez's colleagues in accounting. As far as Halliburton was concerned, they had a traitor in their ranks.</p>
<p>The repercussions of being outed in the email were immediate. While Halliburton never officially demoted Menendez, it stripped him of responsibilities. He no longer was allowed to come to most meetings. Menendez's job required him to teach lower-level Halliburton accounting executives about the latest accounting rules; those sessions were curtailed. Another of his responsibilities was discussing new accounting rules and interpretations with KPMG, the company's auditor. The firm decided it couldn't communicate with Menendez while the SEC investigation was going on. Colleagues avoided him.</p>
<p>Some of his friends at the company stayed loyal but they couldn't be seen with Menendez. He would meet Paquette at a Panera Bread at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. to get caught up. Paquette was so worried about being seen communicating with Menendez that he changed his name on his phone to "Slugger." If Menendez called him during a meeting, up would pop the code name.</p>
<p>After the SEC notified Halliburton of its investigation, the company hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent probe into the matter. The regulator didn't interview Menendez or Paquette during this period. It appeared to Menendez and his lawyers that the SEC was delaying its inquiry while the law firm did its work.</p>
<p>As part of the inquiry, Paquette was summoned downtown to the company's boardroom to be interviewed by the audit committee and the law firm about Halliburton's accounting. Others had simply been interviewed at their regular offices in the Houston suburbs. And, in addition to lawyers for the firm conducting the independent inquiry, attorneys from Halliburton's regular law firm also sat in. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1694683-hearing-transcript-pgs-1-272.html">Paquette felt intimidated</a>. Nonetheless, he told them he agreed with Menendez's interpretation of the rules.</p>
<p>When he got a copy of his deposition back, it seemed doctored. The interview now made it sound like he disagreed with Menendez, the opposite of what he recalled saying and believed.</p>
<p>"I had to edit the whole thing," Paquette told me. "They said, here was the question and here was the answer. I said, ‘Yeah, that was your question but that wasn't what I said. Here is what I said.'"</p>
<p>During this time, Menendez's attorneys would reach out to the SEC. Menendez had only met with the SEC once, to discuss his initial complaint. The agency didn't have someone assigned to interview witnesses nor was there anyone assigned to review documents, James Rytting, who worked on Menendez's case for Hilder's law firm told me. Paquette said he was never interviewed by the SEC.</p>
<p>"As far as I can tell, they did not do an investigation," Rytting said.</p>
<p>The internal investigation cleared Halliburton. Then, in September 2006, the SEC informed Halliburton that it would not bring any enforcement action against the company.</p>
<p>It's not unusual to allow a third-party law firm "to take a first crack at" a probe, said Jordan Thomas, who as an assistant director at the SEC helped develop the agency's whistleblower program. But the Paquette interview "shows you the dangers of the SEC not conducting its own investigations."</p>
<p>Now a partner at Labaton Sucharow, Thomas wonders if the SEC ever received an accurate summary of Paquette's testimony from the independent law firm. With the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform package, which includes protections for whistleblowers, the agency has gotten better at protecting insiders who raise questions, Thomas said.</p>
<p>After the SEC dropped the case, Menendez insisted on meeting with the agency again. He hired a former SEC enforcement attorney who had moved to private practice. In March 2007, they went to Fort Worth together and met with agency lawyers. The meeting was a bust. Menendez felt the SEC lawyers had little interest in what he had to say. They wouldn't even accept any documents Menendez wanted to give them. His attorney came out, shaking his head. "I'm terribly sorry. No matter what, they are not touching this," he told Menendez. (The attorney did not respond to calls seeking comment.)</p>
<p>With the SEC investigation having come to nothing, Menendez felt he couldn't stay at Halliburton. He was convinced he'd been punished for having blown the whistle. In May 2006, he brought a claim under the Sarbanes-Oxley law, which was passed in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals to shore up the enforcement of securities laws. One provision called for the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration to adjudicate whistleblowers' claims of retaliation. Menendez and Rytting, his lawyer, met with two investigators from the agency. Rytting remembers that one read the Wall Street Journal throughout the meeting.</p>
<p>OSHA denied Menendez's claim.</p>
<p>Menendez wanted to press on, but there was a hurdle. He couldn't take Halliburton to court because he had agreed when he was hired by Halliburton to submit employment claims to arbitration. He could bring his case before an administrative law judge. Such hearings tend to be friendlier to companies than employees.</p>
<p>Hilder, his lawyer, was deeply skeptical of his chances. One complicating factor was that Halliburton was shouldering Hilder's fee to represent Menendez during the SEC inquiry, a typical arrangement for senior executives. When the probe wound up, Halliburton no longer had to pay Menendez's legal expenses.</p>
<p>Hilder repeatedly tried to persuade his client to settle the case but Menendez balked. It was the principle of the matter. On the one hand, Hilder was saying he didn't think the chances of winning were good; on the other, he was advising Menendez to settle. Here, the accounting whistleblower personality took over. To Menendez's view of life, this was inconsistent and cynical. If he had no case, how could he demand any money from Halliburton?</p>
<p>Finally, Hilder lost patience. In February 2007, he dropped Menendez as a client. "We must be particularly blunt at this point about the prospects of prevailing," Hilder wrote. "We realize that the investigation by [the Department of Labor] was inadequate," but it's "an important indication of how others see your case."</p>
<p>That blow came on the eve of having to file a legal brief for the case before the administrative law judge. Menendez screamed at him: "You are trying to sabotage my case!" He persuaded Hilder to allow Rytting, who sympathized with Menendez's quest, to work on the filing. They made the deadline.</p>
<p>Menendez wanted his day in court and finally, in September 2007, he had it: a real trial with opening statements, witness testimony, cross-examination. He'd hired a new lawyer, Joe Ahmad.</p>
<p>Ahmad dazzled in court. Rytting, Menendez's former lawyer, attended some of the trial. After one executive who Ahmad had eviscerated walked off the stand, the executive went over to Halliburton's lawyer and said, "Thanks for setting me up, bub," Rytting recalled.</p>
<p>On the witness stand, Paquette backed up Menendez, recounting the intimidating interview and his subsequent concerns with how the company's law firm had shaded his testimony.</p>
<p>"Were you concerned while you were making these corrections that they were trying to <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1694683-hearing-transcript-pgs-1-272.html">put words in your mouth</a>?" Menendez's lawyer asked Paquette.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5536611a6bb3f74358678680-1200-924/halliburton-11.jpg" border="0" alt="Halliburton">"Yes," he replied.</p>
<p>During discovery, Menendez found what he viewed as an indication that the company was planning to punish him for having raised accounting concerns. Tucked into the files turned over by Halliburton was a draft of what was to be his 2005 performance review, dated Sept. 28, 2006. It was written by Mark McCollum, Menendez's boss.</p>
<p>"This morning I met with Tony Menendez," <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1995869-mccollum-performance-review.html">the memo began</a>. What followed was a detailed and scathing review in which McCollum wrote that Menendez "had not met my expectations."</p>
<p>The meeting had never taken place. Under oath, McCollum admitted that he intended to deliver it to Menendez on his return, and had circulated it to the legal and human resources departments beforehand. McCollum still works for Halliburton as the company's executive vice president. (The company did not make him available to comment.)</p>
<p>Ahmad urged Menendez to consider settling the case but his client remained adamant. He had fought with his previous lawyer over this issue and he wouldn't fold now. Sometimes he focused his ire on Carl Jordan, the fancy Vinson &amp; Elkins partner who was representing Halliburton. "I tell you what," Menendez yelled when Ahmad raised the idea of dropping the case. "I'll take $10 million and Carl Jordan has to shove $30,000 up his ass! No. We are not settling!" (Jordan didn't respond to requests for comment.)</p>
<p>But by the end of the trial, everyone on Menendez's team felt good – even Ondy. They thought they had demolished the credibility of the Halliburton executives and showed the lengths they'd gone to retaliate against him and cover things up. "If anything Tony was too Pollyannaish about it, the cockeyed optimistic," Ahmad recalls. "I always felt like it kinda went well; he was like, every single day we were crushing it."</p>
<p>There was nothing left to do but wait. Months passed. Finally, two and a half years after The Email, the judge ruled. He <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1694680-rosenow-ruling-against-menendez.html">dismissed Menendez's claim</a>. Halliburton had won.</p>
<p>The judge determined Menendez hadn't been retaliated against. In doing so, he made a remarkable comment. Of course, the company's employees shunned him. After all, he was a snitch. "It is not unreasonable that they would be reticent to communicate with him about the topics being investigated. That reluctance was not retaliation for whistle blowing, but recognition of complainant's role as an SEC agent," the judge wrote.</p>
<p>The notion that simply blowing the whistle on one's employer transforms someone into an extension of the SEC baffled outside experts. Jordan Thomas, the attorney who specializes in whistleblower cases, called the idea "preposterous." It "would make every whistleblower an agent," he said.</p>
<p>In recalling his loss at trial, the normally voluble Menendez trails off. He looks down at the table, looks up at the sky and then rolls his eyes in pain at the recollection. "Each point was just a tremendous letdown," he says.</p>
<p>Menendez remained convinced his cause was righteous and asked Ahmad about the appeals process. The lawyer sat Menendez down. Ahmad thought the ruling was bunk but sometimes trials didn't go your way. However, people simply didn't win these kinds of appeals. It was the end of the road.</p>
<p>Menendez is "an odd combination. He's agreeable and likeable but if he doesn't agree, you are never going to convince him," Ahmad said. Because Menendez wouldn't ask for money to cover his damages, it was getting tough to represent him further. "From a lawyer's perspective, that can be a little bit frustrating. When taking a case on a contingency basis, you may not be paid," Ahmad told me.</p>
<p>True to his nature, Menendez could not be persuaded to end the case, arguing that he had nothing to lose. "I was fighting for my livelihood, my family, my credibility. For the rest of my life. This would have been a death sentence for my future," Menendez told me.</p>
<p>Menendez and Ahmad parted ways, though without animosity. "I've represented a lot of people at trial and admired none more than Tony," said Ahmad. "He had no concern about any consequence, didn't care about getting a nickel out of this. It cost him his job, his future. This was wrong and that was all that mattered."</p>
<p>Menendez had no legal training, but he decided to represent himself in his appeal. For the next few years, he devoted thousands of hours of his time filing briefs, meeting deadlines, countering Halliburton's team of white-shoe lawyers. At first, he was able to find consulting work to support himself. But that started to dry up. His wife had saved carefully in the flush years, but things were getting tight. "We're no strangers to being broke," Ondy said. "That doesn't scare me as much as someone trying to ruin your reputation. I can go without money."</p>
<p>Halliburton threw everything at Menendez. It argued that since the SEC hadn't brought any enforcement action, his complaint about the accounting was unfounded. (As a matter of law, that's not entirely relevant. Whistleblowers can be victims of retaliation even if they are ultimately proved wrong as long as they have a "reasonable" belief that the company was doing something wrong, Jordan Thomas said.)</p>
<p>Halliburton said executives mentioned Menendez's name in the email that up-ended his life to show they were taking his concerns seriously, not to retaliate against him for coming forward. The company even used Menendez's refusal to ask for money against him. The company's lawyers said it showed he hadn't suffered any damages.</p>
<p>Menendez's wife helped him focus the case. There had been so much distraction, about the accounting and what constituted retaliation. Thankfully, sometimes the appeals process would limit them to a certain number of pages, forcing them refine their arguments. "One single email. This was about one thing. You didn't need to waste pages," Ondy said, throwing out her arms in exasperation all over again. "All the guys with law degrees didn't see it. But it was obvious. Want to scare someone? Send an email with their name in it."</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5536601aeab8eaaf28678681-1084-542/menendez5-2.png" border="0" alt="mENENDEZ5"></p>
<p>The appeals process went on for three years. In September 2011, the administrative law appeals panel ruled. It overturned the original trial judge. After five years, Menendez had his first victory.</p>
<p>But it wasn't over. Halliburton appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. There were more legal filings, more hours of work, more money spent.</p>
<p>Finally, in November of last year, almost nine years after Menendez received The Email, he prevailed. The <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1694682-menendez-5th-circuit-appeal-upheld.html">appeals panel ruled</a> that he indeed had been retaliated against for blowing the whistle, just as he had argued all along.</p>
<p>Because he had wanted only to be proven right, he'd asked for a token sum. The administrative law panel, noting the importance of punishing retaliations against whistleblowers, pushed for an increase and Menendez was awarded $30,000.</p>
<p>Menendez's lawyers were awarded their fees, to be paid by Halliburton. One filed for more than $200,000. Ahmad, because he now had Halliburton as a client, didn't file to recover any of his expenses.</p>
<p>To say that the outcome stunned experts is something of an understatement. "Accountant beats Halliburton!" said Thomas, the attorney and expert on whistleblower law. "The government tries to beat Halliburton and loses."</p>
<p>During the appeals process, as Menendez and his wife waited for vindication and money got tight, Menendez finally caught a break. Through the accounting experts he had met during his legal odyssey, he heard that General Motors was looking for a senior executive.</p>
<p>He agonized over whether to tell interviewers about his showdown with Halliburton. Ultimately, he figured they would probably find out anyway. When he flew up to Detroit and met with Nick Cypress, GM's chief accounting officer and comptroller, he came clean. Cypress had heard good things about Menendez from Doug Carmichael, the accounting expert who had been Menendez's expert witness at trial.</p>
<p>After telling him, he asked Cypress, "Does this bother you?</p>
<p>"Hell no!" the GM executive replied.</p>
<p>This is not the typical reaction top corporate officers have to whistleblowers. I recently caught up with Cypress, who has retired from GM. "I was moved by it," he explained to me. "It takes a lot of courage to stand tall like that and I needed that in the work we were doing. I needed people with high integrity who would work hard who I could trust" to bring problems directly to senior management.</p>
<p>Today, Menendez still works at GM. His job? Overseeing how GM recognizes about $100 billion worth of revenue, the very issue underlying his struggle with Halliburton.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Halliburton has thrived. The SEC never levied any penalty for the accounting issue raised by Menendez. Last year, the company generated $3.5 billion in profit on $33 billion in revenue. It's not possible to tell if the company maintains the same revenue recognition policy from its public filings, says Charles Mulford, an accounting professor at Georgia Tech. But since the SEC passed on an enforcement action on the issue, the company likely feels it is in accordance with accounting rules. (Mulford believes that Menendez was right back then and that the SEC should have looked harder at the issue initially.)</p>
<p>Many of the Halliburton and KPMG officials involved in the accounting issue or the retaliation have continued to prosper in the corporate ranks. One is now Halliburton's chief accounting officer. McCollum is now the company's executive vice president overseeing the integration of a major merger. The KPMG executive who disagreed with Menendez is now a partner at the accounting firm.</p>
<p>Menendez did not tell his friends and family of his legal victory. He's more cautious than he used to be. "I changed a lot. It was almost 10 years where everything was in question. Everything was in question. Wondering what would people think of you."</p>
<p>He and Ondy still worry that disaster could arrive in the next email. "It can really weaken a soul and tear apart a family or a marriage, if you aren't careful. Because of the enormous powers of a company," said Ondy. If people asked her advice, "I'd probably say don't do it."</p>
<p>Recently, Menendez finally explained the story to his son, Cameron, who is now 13 and old enough to understand. Cameron's response: "You should have asked for more money, Dad," the teenager said. "We could use it."</p>
<p>Years ago, Menendez and his wife bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate his eventual victory. They still haven't opened it.</p>
<p><em>ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for their <a href="http://www.propublica.org/forms/newsletter_daily_email">newsletter</a></em>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pixel.propublica.org/pixel.js" async=""></script><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/accountant-took-on-halliburton-and-won-2015-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-boston-marathon-bombing-trial-isnt-being-televised-2015-3Here's why the Boston Marathon bombing trial isn't being televisedhttp://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-boston-marathon-bombing-trial-isnt-being-televised-2015-3
Wed, 18 Mar 2015 15:14:00 -0400Christina Sterbenz
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54f7409feab8ea0a7bfc5af8-1200-600/boston-marathon-bombing-suspect-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-federal-court-sketch.jpg" border="0" alt="Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev federal court sketch"></p><p>The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-defense-attorney-he-participated-in-the-boston-bombing-2015-3">trial of <span>Dzhokhar&nbsp;</span>Tsarnaev</a>, the man accused of orchestrating the Boston Marathon bombing, entered its 10th day Wednesday.</p>
<p>Many Americans are obviously interested in the trial, as the bombing was<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;one of the worst terrorists attacks in US history. The proceedings, however, aren't being televised because cameras are banned <a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/Multimedia/cameras.aspx">in most federal courts</a>.<span><br></span></span></p>
<p>Many have expressed frustration that those interested, especially the victims and their families, have to rely solely on Twitter or news outlets for information.&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>Infuriates me that we can't watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BostonBombing?src=hash">#BostonBombing</a> trial on TV Next best is to follow <a href="https://twitter.com/GlobeCullen">@GlobeCullen</a> live tweets The survivors are heroes</p>
— Heather Hansen (@ImHeatherHansen) <a href="https://twitter.com/ImHeatherHansen/status/573465075232694272">March 5, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>You can't watch the Boston Marathon Bombing trial but you can watch a house explode on a nanny cam <a href="http://t.co/9xB1rM8vHn">http://t.co/9xB1rM8vHn</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Tsarnaev?src=hash">#Tsarnaev</a></p>
— Faux Earl Warren (@SUPCOsunshine) <a href="https://twitter.com/SUPCOsunshine/status/578241054165622784">March 18, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p>The Judicial Conference of the United States has previously attributed the ban on cameras in federal courts to the&nbsp;"<a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/Multimedia/Cameras/history.aspx">intimidating effect of cameras on some witnesses and jurors</a>." &nbsp;</p>
<p>While the bombing trial never stood a chance of live coverage, 14 federal trial courts around the US are taking part in a "digital video pilot" to look at the effects of cameras in the courtroom.</p>
<p>Technically, people could purchase a transcript of the proceedings against <span>Tsarnaev</span>&nbsp;— or they could buy a <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/03/10/you-could-buy-the-tsarnaev-trial-transcript-you-could-buy-range-rover/hbZPM1EAVkfNDoFnZHxOgP/story.html">Range Rover</a>&nbsp;for roughly the same cost.&nbsp;Marcia Patrisso, the court reporter responsible for the trial, estimated a transcript would cost $92,565.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Unlike federal courts, many state courts do allow camera coverage.&nbsp;That's why there has been live coverage of certain state proceedings like ex-NFL player&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-damning-physical-evidence-against-aaron-hernandez-2015-1">Aaron Hernandez's murder trial</a>.<span>&nbsp;</span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-boston-marathon-bombing-trial-isnt-being-televised-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/going-clear-sundance-premiere-scientology-bombshells-2015-1">6 Crazy Things Revealed In HBO's Explosive New Scientology Documentary 'Going Clear'</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/tsarnaevs-second-twitter-account-could-hurt-his-defense-2015-3Tsarnaev's second, overlooked Twitter account could hurt his defensehttp://www.businessinsider.com/tsarnaevs-second-twitter-account-could-hurt-his-defense-2015-3
Tue, 10 Mar 2015 17:15:52 -0400Henry Gass
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54f738e06da811e429502141-600-/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-friend-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Friend" width="600"></p><p>The trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev took a confrontational and, at times, surreal turn Tuesday morning as defense lawyers launched a rare and piercing cross-examination regarding two Twitter accounts linked to their client.</p>
<p>The two accounts on the social media site appear to portray Mr. Tsarnaev in noticeably different states of mind. As both legal teams work to convince the jury just how involved he was in the planning and execution of the April 2013 bombings, the two accounts could provide pivotal insights into his frame of mind prior to the attacks.</p>
<p>Tsarnaev's primary account, @J-tsar, has been written about widely since the bombings, but the second account – not widely known to the public until now – may be more important to the trial. While Tsarnaev appears to have barely used the second account, @Al_firdausiA – sending only seven tweets over the course of three days – it is noticeably more preoccupied with Islam than his personal account.</p>
<p>Recommended: How much do you know about terrorism? Take the quiz.<br>All seven tweets – posted about a month prior to the April 15, 2013, bombings – reference Islam. The account is following nine others on Twitter, many also related to Islam.</p>
<p>The defense team's interest in the two Twitter accounts illustrates its continuing efforts to try and manage how the prosecution draws connections between their client and radical Islam.</p>
<p>On Monday, prosecution witness Steven Kimball, a Federal Bureau of Investigations agent, testified that the tweets point to Tsarnaev’s mind-set in the weeks leading up to the bombing. On Tuesday, Tsarnaev's defense team made efforts to characterize Tsarnaev's second Twitter account as casual and non-threatening over the course of a rigorous, hour-long cross-examination on Tuesday morning, that at times took detours into the bizarre.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0102/An-all-star-team-to-defend-accused-Boston-bomber-Tsarnaev" target="_blank">Lead defense attorney Miriam Conrad</a>&nbsp;pressed Mr. Kimball on a number of tweets he didn't discuss the previous afternoon. She pointed out that Tsarnaev often tweeted American and Russian rap lyrics, including one tweet about wanting to die young.</p>
<p>She also tried to show that many of the tweets were light-hearted or sarcastic. At one point, Conrad asked Kimball if he knew the meaning of the term "LOL," and pointed out that Kimball had mischaracterized a picture on the second account as the Muslim holy city of Mecca, when it is actually a picture of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.</p>
<p>"Is it fair to say that in addition to the 45 tweets that the government chose for you to introduce, there are a lot of tweets about things like girls, cars, food, sleep, homework, complaining about studying," she asked, according to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.metro.us/boston/jury-in-boston-marathon-bomb-trial-sees-blood-stained-note/jZzocj---WIHyHxgySr_blHJqNyopsw/" target="_blank">Metro</a>.</p>
<p>"Yes," Kimball responded.</p>
<p>Conrad added that one of Tsarnaev's more controversial tweets, referencing a "party" on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was actually a quote from a Comedy Central show. Another tweet, posted the day of the 2012 Boston Marathon and allegedly quoting Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, is actually a quote from the Quran, she said.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>"they will spend their money and they will regret it and then they will be defeated"</p>
— Jahar (@J_tsar) <a href="https://twitter.com/J_tsar/status/191839007368413184">April 16, 2012</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p>Ultimately, however, the second Twitter account could still be damaging to Tsarnaev's defense, which is trying to portray Tsarnaev as&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0303/At-core-of-Boston-Marathon-bombing-trial-brothers-complex-relationship-video" target="_blank">an impressionable teenager bullied by his brother</a>&nbsp;into participating in the bombings..</p>
<p>"It’s surprising that there is this second account, and I think it makes it easier for the government to show what they need to show, that is [Tsarnaev] himself was politically engaged and independent of his brother," says Rosanna Cavallaro, a law professor at Suffolk University in Boston.</p>
<p>"The fact that [the second account] is separated from his ordinary day-to-day tweets, and that his college friends didn’t know he had this other account suggests quite literally a double life," she adds.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>Ghuraba, means strangers. Out here in the west, we should stand out among the nonbelievers as one body <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/islam?src=hash">#islam</a></p>
— Ghuraba (@Al_firdausiA) <a href="https://twitter.com/Al_firdausiA/status/311011360400080897">March 11, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p>The second Twitter account can help the prosecution establish Tsarnaev's personal motive and state of mind before the bombings, says Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Boston's Northeastern University.</p>
<p>"At least so far we haven’t heard much evidence about his thoughts before the incident so it’s important to establish motive and state of mind," says Professor Medwed. "These tweets help suggest that he had a sort of independent culpable state of mind and wasn’t just influenced by his brother’s view."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>Listen to Anwar al Awlaki's (a shaheed iA) the here after series, you will gain an unbelievable amount of knowledge <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/islam?src=hash">#islam</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/muslim?src=hash">#muslim</a></p>
— Ghuraba (@Al_firdausiA) <a href="https://twitter.com/Al_firdausiA/status/311005838959595520">March 11, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p>Testimony from later in the day Tuesday could also be damaging to Tsarnaev's defense, experts said.</p>
<p>Tsarnaev left a handwritten note in the boat in which he was captured in Watertown, Mass., on April 19 after a nearly 24-hour manhunt. He wrote that the United States government&nbsp;"is killing our innocent civilians," and "As a Muslim I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished," said Todd Brown, a Boston Police Department bomb technician who helped sweep the boat. Another message in the boat said "jealous of my brother," referencing his older brother, Tamerlan, who had been killed when Dzhokhar ran him over during a confrontation with police the night before.</p>
<p>But Tuesday did provided the defense with rare opportunities to cross-examine witnesses. So far, the prosecution has not cross-examined victims of the bombing because there would be "nothing to gain and a lot to lose," Medwed says. But as the prosecution calls law enforcement and expert witnesses, who will evoke less emotion, the defense can be more aggressive without putting off the jury.</p>
<p>"I&nbsp;think what’s great about this defense strategy is they're being very selective about who they’re cross-examining and what they're cross-examining about, and that says to the jury, 'Look, this is important. We’re not doing this very often so this is important,' " Medwed adds.</p>
<p>The defense's cross-examinations of officials are calculated to have a cumulative effect, says&nbsp;Thomas Nolan, a criminologist at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.</p>
<p>"If they can have one small chink in the armor from each of them and build them up over many, many witnesses who are about to testify, I think their strategy is to at least create sufficient concern [among the jury] over the involvement of defendant to not impose death penalty."</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tsarnaevs-second-twitter-account-could-hurt-his-defense-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-witmans-tragic-story-serial-podcast-serial-cristina-gutierrez-adnan-syed-2015-3Watch this documentary short about a tragic crime featured on the hit podcast 'Serial'http://www.businessinsider.com/the-witmans-tragic-story-serial-podcast-serial-cristina-gutierrez-adnan-syed-2015-3
Sun, 08 Mar 2015 09:45:00 -0400Devan Joseph
<p>At 3:10 p.m. on October 2, 1998, 13-year-old <a href="http://www.witmanproject.com/timeline/">Gregory Witman returned home from school</a>. Seven minutes later, his 15-year-old brother Zachary dialed 911 to report finding Gregory brutally murdered in their laundry room. What followed was five years of appeals, scant evidence, and botched trials that eventually resulted in Zachary's being charged with killing his brother. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. This documentary follows parents Ron and Sue Witman, 15 years after their lives were turned upside down.</p>
<p><em>Video courtesy of <a href="http://www.shannonsun.com/">Shannon Sun-Higginson</a> &amp; <a href="https://vimeo.com/user12988521">Joe Lee</a></em></p>
<p><strong>To learn more about the Witmans and their trial visit <a href="http://www.witmanproject.com/">witmanproject.com</a></strong></p>
<p><strong><strong>Follow BI Video:</strong><span>&nbsp;</span></strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsider.Video">On Facebook</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-witmans-tragic-story-serial-podcast-serial-cristina-gutierrez-adnan-syed-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-accused-boston-bombers-lawyers-are-making-a-huge-gamble-2015-3The accused Boston bomber's lawyers are making a huge gamblehttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-accused-boston-bombers-lawyers-are-making-a-huge-gamble-2015-3
Fri, 06 Mar 2015 15:31:14 -0500Scott Malone
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/51ddc7fa6bb3f79029000014-600-/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-court-sketch-boston-bombing.jpg" border="0" alt="dzhokhar tsarnaev court sketch boston bombing" width="600">BOSTON (Reuters) - When they admitted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's role in the Boston Marathon bombing, his lawyers acknowledged that he will almost certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars. But the admission may help spare him a death sentence, legal experts said.</span></p>
<p>Tsarnaev's defense team opened his trial this week by bluntly admitting that the 21-year-old defendant and his older brother planted the twin bombs that killed three people and injured 264 on April 15, 2013, and three days later fatally shot a police officer as they tried to flee the city.</p>
<p>In the testimony that followed, the jury heard survivors' graphic and sometimes tearful accounts of being thrown through the air by the bombs, seeing their legs blown away and one father's account of having to leave his 8-year-old son, who he knew would not survive, in order to save his younger daughter, who lost a leg but not her life.</p>
<p>That testimony is all part of the first phase of the trial in U.S. District Court in Boston, where the jury will determine if Tsarnaev is guilty. Only after that will it move to the question of whether to sentence him to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.</p>
<p>"The defense idea is that the jury is going to get to take its anger out on Tsarnaev by finding him guilty and then, hopefully, they will be able to set that aside and determine the question of punishment, should be live or die, a little more neutrally," said John Blume, a law professor at Cornell University who heads the school's Death Penalty Project.</p>
<p>Prosecutors have already shown videos of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, walking through crowds at the race's finish line and heard from Jeff Bauman, who testified that he saw the older brother leave a backpack shortly before the blast tore his legs off.</p>
<p>Tamerlan Tsarnaev died following a gunbattle with police when the two tried to flee Boston three days after the attack and Dzhokhar was found the next day, hiding in a drydocked boat where he had written a message describing the bombing as revenge for U.S. military action in Muslim-dominated countries.</p>
<p>Given the large amount of evidence against Tsarnaev, his lawyers are likely hoping that admitting guilt will help them win the jury's trust.</p>
<p>"If you know from a trial strategy perspective that the government is going to be able to prove the case, you don't want to lose credibility with the jury by standing there and saying, 'My guy didn't do it,'" said Walter Prince, a Boston attorney in private practice and former federal prosecutor.</p>
<p>Defense attorneys have passed on cross-examining any of the victims or first responders who testified in the trial's first two days, leaving the prosecution to make its case and moving the guilt phase of the trial along more quickly than expected.</p>
<h3>FOCUS ON CULPABILITY</h3>
<p>The fact that Tsarnaev has not pleaded guilty suggests that federal prosecutors were not willing to back down from their efforts to have him sentenced to death, legal experts said.</p>
<p>Defense attorney Judith Clarke in her Wednesday opening statement laid out her argument for sparing Tsarnaev's life, that he was simply following the lead of a domineering older brother and not the driving force behind the attack.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5177019769bedd477300002c-1200-858/ap771747671566.jpg" border="0" alt="Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev"></p>
<p>U.S. District Judge George O'Toole cut her off at one point, noting that he would not allow "much" discussion of the pair's relative blame until the jury rules on Tsarnaev's guilt.</p>
<p>O'Toole allowed testimony by some bombing survivors about the repeated surgeries they underwent to repair legs ripped apart by shrapnel, despite complaints by the defense out of the jury's hearing that such testimony was better suited to the sentencing phase of the trial.</p>
<p>But he drew a line when two Boston Police officers who were U.S. military veterans drew comparisons between the bombing and their service in Iraq.</p>
<p>"I don't want to hear the word 'Iraq' or 'Afghanistan' without prior permission until we get to that other stage of the case," O'Toole said on Thursday. The court recessed on Friday with testimony set to resume Monday.</p>
<p>Despite O'Toole's efforts to keep the early part of the trial focused on guilt, both sides will be working to bolster their arguments for and against a death sentence, legal experts said.</p>
<p>"What they're doing is pre-conditioning the jurors," said David Weinstein, a Florida attorney who in prior jobs as a state and federal prosecutor brought death-penalty cases. "It's virtually impossible for a juror to sit through the guilt phase and not have an impression made in their mind about what's going to happen in the penalty phase."</p>
<p>(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Tom Brown)</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-accused-boston-bombers-lawyers-are-making-a-huge-gamble-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-defense-lawyer-judy-clarke-2015-3Meet the woman who is defending Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in courthttp://www.businessinsider.com/meet-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-defense-lawyer-judy-clarke-2015-3
Thu, 05 Mar 2015 04:13:00 -0500Pamela Engel
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54f8243c6bb3f79c7d6eb46a-480-/judy-clarke-3.jpg" border="0" alt="Judy Clarke" width="480"></p><p>The lawyer who is defending Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in court has a well-known track record of getting her clients life sentences instead of the death penalty.</p>
<p>Prominent death penalty lawyer Judy Clarke previously defended Susan Smith, who drowned her two children, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph, and Tucson shooter Jared Loughner.</p>
<p><a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/reclusive-death-penalty-lawyer-opens-about-work">They all got life in prison instead of the death penalty.</a></p>
<p>She's now defending 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who has been charged with planting two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The attack killed three people and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/marathon-bombing-injuries-still-rising-2013-4">injured more than 200 others</a> in 2013.</p>
<p>Clarke spoke about her previous work defending death penalty clients two years ago at a legal conference.</p>
<p>"I got a dose of understanding human behavior and I learned what the death penalty does to us," she said at the event, <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/reclusive-death-penalty-lawyer-opens-about-work">according to the Associated Press</a>. "I don't think it's a secret that I oppose the death penalty."</p>
<p>Clarke said that most of her death penalty clients have suffered from severe trauma.</p>
<p>"Many suffer from severe cognitive development issues that affect the core of their being," she said.</p>
<p>In some cases, Clarke has to convince her clients to plead guilty in order to avoid the death penalty.</p>
<p>"Our job is to provide them with a reason to live," Clarke said.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/whos-representing-boston-bomb-suspect-2013-4">Leading Tsarnaev's defense team</a> is a <a href="http://www.mad.uscourts.gov/bbc/pdf/CONRADMiriam_000.pdf">public defender</a> who has represented other accused terrorists. Miriam Conrad is known for defending "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and Rezwan Ferdaus, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison after admitting he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/us/rezwan-ferdaus-of-massachusetts-gets-17-years-in-terrorist-plot.html">plotted to blow up the Pentagon and the Capitol.</a></p>
<p>Conrad told <a href="http://rilawyersweekly.com/blog/2006/11/06/federal-defender-is-david-to-governments-goliath/">Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly</a> why she represents such defendants.</p>
<p>"If you scratch the surface, many have had difficult lives, and, as their lawyer, I sort of see them whole — not just as a person charged with a crime," she said in the interview. "No one has ever stood up for them, and that is a very powerful, emotional thing."</p>
<p>Although Tsarnaev entered pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in 2013, in court on Wednesday, Clarke admitted that he was guilty of participating in the attack.</p>
<p>She told the court: "The evidence will not establish and we will not argue that Tamerlan put a gun to Dzhokhar's head or that he forced him to join in the plan, but you will hear evidence about the kind of influence that this older brother had."</p>
<p>Clarke also held up two photos of the brothers — one from years before the marathon attack and the second from the scene of the bombing where they're shown carrying backpacks containing explosives, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-defense-attorney-he-participated-in-the-boston-bombing-2015-3">according to</a>&nbsp;the AP. She then asked the jury: "What took&nbsp;Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from this ... to this?"</p>
<p>Tsarnaev's defense team appears to be focusing solely on saving him from the death penalty. His older brother Tamerlan, whom the defense appears to be portraying as the mastermind behind the bombing, died in 2013 during a manhunt for the brothers in Watertown, Massachusetts.</p>
<p>Authorities say anger over US wars in Muslim lands motivated the brothers, both ethnic Chechens who moved to the US from Russia more than 10 years ago, to carry out the plot, according to the AP.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-defense-attorney-he-participated-in-the-boston-bombing-2015-3" >Boston bomber's defense attorney: 'It was him'</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-defense-lawyer-judy-clarke-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/drunk-driving-checkpoint-regulation-hack-2015-2">A lawyer in Florida has come up with an ingenious way for drivers to evade drunken-driving checkpoints</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/business-skills-we-can-learn-from-attorneys-2014-87 business skills we can learn from attorneyshttp://www.businessinsider.com/business-skills-we-can-learn-from-attorneys-2014-8
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:11:00 -0500Casey Berman
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4fe0e61aeab8ea062a00000e-480-/lawyer-4.jpg" border="0" alt="Smiling Lawyer" width="480"></p><p>Some of us lawyers want to leave the law: We are unhappy and dissatisfied with our work situation.</p>
<p>We suffer long hours. We find our day-to-day lawyer tasks mostly uninteresting. We are demotivated because we are not included in the partner track discussions. We feel we receive little-to-no mentoring. We are weighed down by high student loans.</p>
<p>And maybe most important, we feel that our professional skill set is not really in alignment with the duties and responsibilities required to be a lawyer.</p>
<p>We are not fully confident that we can be a real good lawyer. It’s turning out that what we are good at doing and what we enjoy doing isn’t what an attorney does. We’re pretty sure that this lawyer gig is really not for us.</p>
<p>But we don’t leave the law because we have sincere doubts that any of our legal job skills are transferable to any non-legal jobs. We find it unrealistic that someone outside of a law firm would even consider hiring a lawyer like us. We don’t believe that we have any marketable skills that a non-legal business would want.</p>
<p>But we do. We lawyers who want to leave the law possess a skill set and an array of talents that are actually in high demand by many businesses. Let’s see how.</p>
<h3>1. Client Management</h3>
<p>In a business, any business, whether it sells a product or provides a service, there are people it sells to or works closely with that need to be managed and attended to (call them customers or clients or partners or stakeholders or shareholders or advisors or any number of other descriptive terms). These real, live, human customers need to be understood, coddled, directed, serviced, up sold, excited and reigned in.</p>
<p>Working with clients is something we lawyers do day-in and day-out. A lawyer’s ability to listen, issue spot and relate with these real, live, human people is a skill that not everyone has. This skill is essential to a company’s relationship building, reputation growth, client retention and customer support.</p>
<h3>2. Upselling</h3>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">If a business provides value to its customers, the customers will naturally come back for more. But oftentimes, businesses need to proactively suggest and highlight potential products and services and future projects to their captive customer base. This of course helps the business grow its revenue, and also provides a valuable service to a customer by (sincerely) suggesting other products and services to which the customer can avail him or herself.</span></p>
<p>Whether we realize it or not, we attorneys are always upselling. Attorneys with close client contact will often suggest other courses of action, other defenses to approach, other research and analysis angles, other agreements to put in place, other services to consider, other advisors to contact. Upselling new ideas is instinctual for us … and can be an extremely valuable skill set for every business and appreciated by its customers.</p>
<h3>3. Issue Spotting</h3>
<p>Believe it or not, the “I” in IRAC could be our ticket to a new gig. In business, there are always issues, messes, projects, and things to figure out. Something always goes wrong, and a solution to fix it needs to be hatched. Or something goes phenomenally right and this new opportunity presents a multitude of new options. As such, decisions need to be made, strategies need to be devised, communications need to be delivered, next steps need to be agreed upon, and teams need to be created to execute.</p>
<p>This is what we do daily. Who better than an attorney to jump up to that white board in the conference room, assess the mess of options and gradually moderate all of the executives to spot the issues that affect the business most, objectively prioritize actions, and then calmly delegate to the most responsible employees? We don’t need to necessarily make the final call; we just need to create the environment for the executive team to calmly make informed, thorough, and educated decisions on what to do next. We issue spot for a living for our clients … we can do the same for businesses out there.</p>
<h3>4. Clear And Concise Prose</h3>
<p>Attorneys write. A lot. And we write well. We write clearly, precisely and in a thoughtful, informative manner.</p>
<p>And so much of business nowadays is also about writing: People from all types of companies write stuff … emails, PowerPoints, proposals, reviews, reports, bios, pitch books, social media content, marketing content.</p>
<p>And it’s a sad fact, but across many businesses, so much of this content is not written well: It’s unclear, not spaced correctly, un-relatable, grammatically incorrect or just plain indecipherable. People go back and forth trying to understand each other or send multiple versions trying to come to a final result. Time is wasted, important issues are misunderstood, frustration grows, productivity is reduced.</p>
<p>Our writing style can help. We can craft explanatory emails. We can draw up informative presentations. We can put together persuasive pitches. And we can do all of this in less time and with less confusion than many non-lawyers can. We’ve already been trained to write understandable, persuasive content for discerning readers (judges, opposing counsel, clients). In the current Information and Content Age, this is a skill any business would love to get its hands on.</p>
<h3>5. Interpersonal Skills</h3>
<p>Even with telecommuting, virtual offices and the internet, business is won and lost and grows and retracts based on personal relationships. People do business with whom they trust, with whom they find commonality and with whom they like. And these relationships are built on clear communication, exchanges of ideas and getting to know each other.</p>
<p>While not all lawyers would rank interpersonal skills as their top strength, many do. We rain make new business, we build relationships with opposing counsel, we get to know judges and staff, we become trusted advisors to companies and organizations. All of these relationship skills are also in heavy demand by businesses, who need interactive people to build strong personal relationships and lead important strategic initiatives.</p>
<h3>6. Dependable, Disciplined And Loyal</h3>
<p>In addition to people they can trust and like, business owners need workers they can depend on. Things need to get done, fires need to be put out, projects need to be kickstarted. The person that just gets stuff done on time, even if it’s not perfect, is of immense value.</p>
<p>We lawyers are solid people. We can be counted on. We meet deadlines. We are used to keeping confidentiality, professional ethics, and fiduciary duties. In short, we have been regulated our whole lives and while this may wear on us or the responsibility may even cause us anxiety as practicing lawyers, it has distilled in us a distinct sense of responsibility and duty that is indispensable for businesses looking for solid people to hire.</p>
<h3>7. Working Long Hours</h3>
<p>People in business put in a lot of hard work. Nowadays, with the 24/7 cycle, it seems like everyone is always working.</p>
<p>And we of course work hard too. Attorneys work into the evenings throughout the work week. We come into the office around noon on Sundays. We work around the clock when the deal or the trial requires it. Going the extra mile (and miles after that) is expected in our day-to-day as a lawyer.</p>
<p>Of course, these long hours are a major driver for many wanting to leave the law. But in the non-legal business world, where people work hard but where “normal lawyer” hours are definitely not the norm, we will by default often be the hardest worker in the room. This means that we can achieve some of the reduced hour lifestyle we so desperately want, while also contributing mightily to our company and its mission.</p>
<p>So keep this in mind – what we lawyers do day to day is not solely reserved for the practice of the law. There is a wide world out there of other, non-legal roles that may be a fit with our skill set and strengths.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/business-skills-we-can-learn-from-attorneys-2014-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-you-should-forget-setting-goals-2014-11">Forget Setting Goals — Focus On This Instead</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/drunk-driving-checkpoint-regulation-hack-2015-2A lawyer in Florida has come up with an ingenious way for drivers to evade drunken-driving checkpointshttp://www.businessinsider.com/drunk-driving-checkpoint-regulation-hack-2015-2
Tue, 10 Feb 2015 15:25:00 -0500Jason Gaines and Associated Press
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<p>A South Florida lawyer, Warren Redlich, has come up with a way for drivers to handle police at drunken-driving checkpoints. He posted a video about it that has gotten over 2 million internet views.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Watch the video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqEXTVe7MCQ">here</a>.</p>
<p><em>Produced by Jason Gaines.&nbsp;Video courtesy of Associated Press.</em></p>
<p><strong>Follow BI Video:</strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsider.Video">On Facebook</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/drunk-driving-checkpoint-regulation-hack-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-these-people-hate-the-idea-of-making-law-school-shorter-2014-11Why Legal Professionals Want Law School To Stay 3 Yearshttp://www.businessinsider.com/why-these-people-hate-the-idea-of-making-law-school-shorter-2014-11
Mon, 01 Dec 2014 12:41:31 -0500Natasha Bertrand
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/547ca75b6bb3f7602bb7ee2b-600-/obama-teaching-law-school-9.jpg" border="0" alt="Obama teaching law school" width="600"></p><p>In <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/top-law-schools-in-america-2014-11">a survey of 371 legal professionals </a>conducted by Business Insider, 61% of participants opposed shortening law school to two years from three years.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>"<span>Two years hardly seems enough time to learn basic legal principles while also gaining work experience prior to actually joining the workforce," one respondent wrote. "There are already too many lawyers as is; cutting a year off law school would only make it worse and produce underdeveloped graduates."</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Of the legal professionals surveyed, just 31% said that law school should be shortened to two years, and 7.8% did not respond.&nbsp;<span><br></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Most lawyers agreed that a two-year course of study would be rushed and incomplete.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span>"</span><span>Having three years allows you to take more specialized classes and helps you figure out what areas of the law you would like to practice," said one respondent.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The possibility of shortening law school has been the subject of <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/09/18/223610581/should-it-take-3-years-to-earn-a-law-degree">much debate</a>. More students are seeking affordable education, and a third year of law school can cost students an extra $30,000-$50,000.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span>President Barack Obama, a Harvard law grad and former law school professor, weighed in last year: "<span>I believe that law schools would probably be wise to think about being two years instead of three years,” he said, adding that students can learn all they need to pass the bar in two years.&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span>Still, many lawyers believe just two years of law school would leave students unprepared.</span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span>"Two years would be cramming it in," wrote another. "There is just t<span>oo much information to absorb."</span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Others argued that shortening the course would flood the job market with unqualified lawyers.&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"<span>There's enough lawyers,"&nbsp;</span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">wrote one participant. "<span>Don't make it easier for there to be more with less skill."</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>"Law schools are producing too many lawyers," said another. "If the time was shortened even more lawyers would graduate and be unsuccessful in finding jobs."</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Others felt that while the third year is necessary, it should be more focused on hands-on training and job placement.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"<span>I think the third year should be a residency type of program where you actually practice law rather than just go to classes," one respondent wrote. </span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>"<span>I think it should be a two year academic program with a third year focused on internships, job placement and Bar Exam preparation," said yet another participant.&nbsp;</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>A handful of participants thought the third year of law school is a waste of time and money altogether.&nbsp;</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span><span>"Law school is so prohibitively expensive, and jobs are so difficult to find, that cutting a year would be a huge benefit to students," one respondent said. "The third year is not really necessary for your development. You learn the skills you need to learn from law school (critical thinking, analyzing a problem, research and writing skills) in the first two years."</span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span><span>"<span>3 years is prohibitively expensive," wrote another. "Not to mention, the sooner you graduate the sooner you can start paying back your loans and actually make an income."&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/top-law-schools-in-america-2014-11" >The 50 Best Law Schools In America</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-these-people-hate-the-idea-of-making-law-school-shorter-2014-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-lawyers-for-scientology-doc-2014-11HBO Has 160 Lawyers Preparing For Its New Scientology Documentaryhttp://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-lawyers-for-scientology-doc-2014-11
Tue, 25 Nov 2014 12:01:00 -0500Aly Weisman
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5474afd369beddbd76c45c8f-1200-924/tom-cruise-31.jpg" border="0" alt="tom cruise "></p><p>HBO is producing a new documentary on the Church of Scientology <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/hbo-prepping-bombshell-scientology-film-751497" target="_blank">so explosive</a> that the network has been forced to hire legal backup.</p>
<p><span>"We have probably 160 lawyers" looking at the film, HBO Documentary Films president&nbsp;</span>Sheila&nbsp;Nevins tells <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/hbo-prepping-bombshell-scientology-film-751497" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.</p>
<p>The documentary is based on&nbsp;Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright's controversial book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307700666/?tag=googhydr-20&amp;hvadid=50428646105&amp;hvpos=1t1&amp;hvexid=&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=10619021348944856607&amp;hvpone=19.61&amp;hvptwo=&amp;hvqmt=b&amp;hvdev=c&amp;ref=pd_sl_9r6kyxeayc_b" target="_blank">Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, &amp; the Prison of Belief</a>," which&nbsp;grew out of a New Yorker profile on <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-apostate-3" target="_blank">former Scientologist director Paul Haggis</a>.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/50a52c936bb3f7184100000c-348-468/screen shot 2012-11-15 at 12.00.33 pm.png" border="0" alt="Going Clear scientology book tom cruise" style="color: #000000;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Wright's book was initially met with strong resistance from the litigious Church of Scientology and "</span><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/hbo-prepping-bombshell-scientology-film-751497?utm_source=twitter">threatening letters from lawyers</a>" when it hit shelves in 2013. The<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;church published&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.lawrencewrightgoingclear.com/" target="_blank">a lengthy takedown</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;of the book upon its US release, and it&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">was never even published in the&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">UK</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> after the publisher&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">dropped "</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Going Clear"</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;at the advice of its lawyers.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">HBO is bracing for protests as well but still hopes the doc will be done in time to be</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;submitted to the Sundance Film Festival in January.</span></p>
<p><span>The doc "is e</span><span>xpected to feature new revelations about the controversial religion and its famous followers&nbsp;</span><span>Tom Cruise</span><span>&nbsp;and&nbsp;</span><span>John Travolta," THR reports.</span></p>
<p>Oscar-winning <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0316795/" target="_blank">filmmaker Alex Gibney</a> is attached to direct. Gibney's previous topics he has explored in his <a href="http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/alex-gibney-the-take-down-artist-20131122" target="_blank">"documentary factory"</a> include <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Lance Armstrong, Enron, Eliot Spitzer, WikiLeaks, and the US military.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/famous-church-of-scientology-members-2012-7" >Here Are 21 Famous Church Of Scientology Members</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-lawyers-for-scientology-doc-2014-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/law-school-is-worth-it-even-if-you-dont-get-into-a-top-tier-school-2014-11Law School Is Still Worth It Even If You Don't Get Into Harvard Or Yalehttp://www.businessinsider.com/law-school-is-worth-it-even-if-you-dont-get-into-a-top-tier-school-2014-11
Tue, 25 Nov 2014 10:31:53 -0500Natasha Bertrand
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5464c7c86da811855c7cdef9-600-401/yale-law-school-10.jpg" border="0" alt="yale law school"></p><p>In a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/top-law-schools-in-america-2014-11">survey of 371 legal professionals conducted by Business Insider</a>, 49.4% of participants said they'd still attend law school even if they didn't get into a top-tier program.&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>"A well-pedigreed degree does not directly translate into an effective, passionate, professional or ethical practice of law," wrote one respondent. "Every institution, regardless of reputation or prominence or lack thereof, has its fair share of both angels and a**holes."</span></p>
<p><span><span>Of the legal professionals surveyed, just 35.7% said they would not attend law school if they didn't get into a top program, 14.9% said it depends, and 7.8% did not respond.</span></span></p>
<p><span>Most respondents felt a law school's reputation was not its most valuable asset, with 43.3% ranking critical thinking above factors like a school's network and brand value.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The law school that I attended taught me practical skills and greatly prepared me to practice law in the real world," wrote one respondent, who attended Thomas Cooley School of Law, <a href="http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/thomas-m-cooley-law-school-03080">an unranked law school</a>.</span></p>
<p><span><span><span>"Private law school tuition is not worth it," wrote another. "Go to the best public law school you can get into but you need to finish in top 10% to get a decent job."</span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span>Despite these answers,&nbsp;<span>the majority of respondents chose schools with top-tier programs such as Harvard, Yale, and Columbia&nbsp;</span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">when asked to&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">select the top 10 law schools in terms of how well they prepare students to land their ideal job.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">For one respondent, national reputation is everything. "<span>Don't go to law school unless you get into a top ten school and are going to be in the top ten of that school."</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>For another, a school's regional reputation matters the most. "<span>A potential law student should decide where they want to practice and then go to the cheapest school they can get into that has a good reputation in that region. Everything else is window-dressing."&nbsp;</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span><span>In the end, however, many believe it all comes down to how hard a law student is willing to work.</span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span><span><span>"</span><span>You can take a person with no academic aptitude and put them in a top tier school and all they get is a prestigious school name on their diploma," said one participant.</span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span><span><span>"</span><span>An individual's own effort is the most important thing at wherever he or she goes to law school," wrote another.</span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span><span><span><span>&nbsp;"Who cares where you went?" yet another wrote. "It's what you do with your degree that matters."&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/top-law-schools-in-america-2014-11" >The 50 Best Law Schools In America</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/law-school-is-worth-it-even-if-you-dont-get-into-a-top-tier-school-2014-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-jobs-for-people-who-hate-math-2014-1125 High-Paying Jobs For People Who Hate Mathhttp://www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-jobs-for-people-who-hate-math-2014-11
Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:00:00 -0500Emmie Martin
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/546390e769bedd6b4da12570-600-/math-class-professor-5.jpg" border="0" alt="Math Class Professor" width="600"><span style="color: #000000; line-height: 1.5em;">Did you dread math class as a kid? If so, that feeling probably didn't go away, and you're likely not too keen on the idea of doing math as a <em>career</em>.</span></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><span style="color: #000000; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Luckily, there are plenty of high-paying jobs for those who</span><span>&nbsp;can't stand the thought of crunching numbers and sifting through data all day.</span></span></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">We combed through the <a href="http://www.onetonline.org/find/descriptor/result/2.A.1.e">Occupational Information Network (O*NET)</a>, a<span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> US</span> Department of Labor database that compiles detailed information on hundreds of occupations, to find positions with a median annual salary of over $65,000 that don't require heavy math skills.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">O*NET ranks how important "<a href="http://www.onetonline.org/find/descriptor/result/2.A.1.e">using mathematics to solve problems</a>" is in any job, assigning each a "math importance level" between 1 and 100. Math-centric positions, such as mathematicians and statisticians, rank between 90 and 100 on the spectrum, while jobs such as massage therapists and actors are under 10.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Here are the highest-paying positions with a math importance level of 31 or less.<span style="background-color: #ffff00;"><span style="text-decoration: line-through;"><br></span></span></span></p><h3>25. Philosophy and Religion Teacher, Postsecondary</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/546381efecad04917aa12572-400-300/25-philosophy-and-religion-teacher-postsecondary.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p class="p1"><strong>Median salary:</strong> $65,540</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Math importance level:</strong> 28</p>
<p class="p1">These professors t<span>each courses in philosophy, religion, and theology at the university or graduate level. The title includes both teachers primarily engaged in teaching and those who do a combination of teaching and research.</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>24. Transportation Vehicle, Equipment, And Systems Inspector</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54637d09ecad045164a12570-400-300/24-transportation-vehicle-equipment-and-systems-inspector.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p class="p1"><strong>Median salary:</strong> $65,950</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Math importance level:</strong> 25</p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Inspectors are in charge of inspecting and monitoring transportation equipment, vehicles, and/or systems to ensure that they comply with regulations and safety standards.</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>23. Diagnostic Medical Sonographer</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5463863b6bb3f7c472a12573-400-300/23-diagnostic-medical-sonographer.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p class="p1"><strong>Median salary:</strong> $66,410</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Math importance level:</strong> 31</p>
<p class="p1">Sonographers p<span>roduce ultrasonic recordings of internal organs for use by physicians.</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-jobs-for-people-who-hate-math-2014-11#22-area-ethnic-and-cultural-studies-teacher-postsecondary-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-jobs-for-people-who-hate-math-2014-1125 High-Paying Jobs For People Who Hate Mathhttp://www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-jobs-for-people-who-hate-math-2014-11
Thu, 13 Nov 2014 13:45:00 -0500Emmie Martin
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/546390e769bedd6b4da12570-600-/math-class-professor-5.jpg" border="0" alt="Math Class Professor" width="600"><span style="color: #000000; line-height: 1.5em;">Did you dread math class as a kid? If so, that feeling probably didn't go away, and you're likely not too keen on the idea of doing math as a <em>career</em>.</span></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><span style="color: #000000; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Luckily, there are plenty of high-paying jobs for those who</span><span>&nbsp;can't stand the thought of crunching numbers and sifting through data all day.</span></span></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">We combed through the <a href="http://www.onetonline.org/find/descriptor/result/2.A.1.e">Occupational Information Network (O*NET)</a>, a<span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> US</span> Department of Labor database that compiles detailed information on hundreds of occupations, to find positions with a median annual salary of over $65,000 that don't require heavy math skills.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">O*NET ranks how important "<a href="http://www.onetonline.org/find/descriptor/result/2.A.1.e">using mathematics to solve problems</a>" is in any job, assigning each a "math importance level" between 1 and 100. Math-centric positions, such as mathematicians and statisticians, rank between 90 and 100 on the spectrum, while jobs such as massage therapists and actors are under 10.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Here are the highest-paying positions with a math importance level of 31 or less.<span style="background-color: #ffff00;"><span style="text-decoration: line-through;"><br></span></span></span></p><h3>25. Philosophy and Religion Teacher, Postsecondary</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/546381efecad04917aa12572-400-300/25-philosophy-and-religion-teacher-postsecondary.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p class="p1"><strong>Median salary:</strong> $65,540</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Math importance level:</strong> 28</p>
<p class="p1">These professors t<span>each courses in philosophy, religion, and theology at the university or graduate level. The title includes both teachers primarily engaged in teaching and those who do a combination of teaching and research.</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>24. Transportation Vehicle, Equipment, And Systems Inspector</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54637d09ecad045164a12570-400-300/24-transportation-vehicle-equipment-and-systems-inspector.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p class="p1"><strong>Median salary:</strong> $65,950</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Math importance level:</strong> 25</p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Inspectors are in charge of inspecting and monitoring transportation equipment, vehicles, and/or systems to ensure that they comply with regulations and safety standards.</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>23. Diagnostic Medical Sonographer</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5463863b6bb3f7c472a12573-400-300/23-diagnostic-medical-sonographer.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p class="p1"><strong>Median salary:</strong> $66,410</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Math importance level:</strong> 31</p>
<p class="p1">Sonographers p<span>roduce ultrasonic recordings of internal organs for use by physicians.</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-jobs-for-people-who-hate-math-2014-11#22-area-ethnic-and-cultural-studies-teacher-postsecondary-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/this-hotshot-lawyer-is-playing-an-extraordinary-role-in-one-of-the-biggest-divorce-cases-ever-2014-11This Hotshot Lawyer Is Playing An Extraordinary Role In One Of The Biggest Divorce Cases Everhttp://www.businessinsider.com/this-hotshot-lawyer-is-playing-an-extraordinary-role-in-one-of-the-biggest-divorce-cases-ever-2014-11
Thu, 06 Nov 2014 06:42:00 -0500Joshua Schneyer and Brian Grow
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/545b5c39ecad043749d0d992-1200-2000/rtr47ihm (1).jpg" border="0" alt="Continental Resources General Counsel Eric Eissenstat ">During the divorce trial of oil baron&nbsp;</span>Harold Hamm<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;and wife&nbsp;</span>Sue Ann<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">, an unusual relationship took shape in the&nbsp;</span>Oklahoma<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;courtroom as the marriage was being dismantled.</span></p>
<p>From the bench, Special Judge&nbsp;Howard Haralson&nbsp;playfully tossed red and white peppermints to a lawyer sitting alone in the jury box who didn't represent either of the Hamms in the case.</p>
<p>The man, Eric Eissenstat, serves as general counsel, senior vice president, secretary and chief risk officer for&nbsp;Continental Resources, the publicly traded oil company founded and run by Harold. And during a trial that could result in one of the largest divorce judgments in U.S. history, Eissenstat emerged as one of the most important people in the courtroom.</p>
<p>For all but a few hours of testimony in the nine-week trial, the proceedings were closed to the public and to the media – a practice atypical in divorce cases that don't involve child custody disputes. But interviews with a half-dozen people who were present in the courtroom, and with others familiar with the case, indicate that Eissenstat played an extraordinary role throughout the trial.</p>
<p>It was Eissenstat, the company's top lawyer, who advocated successfully for the trial to be closed to the public, contending that discussion of Continental's confidential business information warranted secrecy.&nbsp;Judge Haralson agreed, saying on the first day of trial that he wished to keep “a divorce trial from destroying” Continental, one of&nbsp;America's most successful oil companies. Although about 95 percent of the trial was closed, Eissenstat was allowed to stay and to participate.</p>
<p>Eissenstat also attended pre-trial hearings, court filings show, and visited frequently with&nbsp;Harold Hamm's personal divorce attorneys, according to people familiar with the case.</p>
<p>After the trial began, Eissenstat's role in the case grew. Haralson allowed Eissenstat to interject during the proceedings, to approach the bench, and to attend meetings with the spouses' lawyers in chambers, according to court filings and interviews with others in the courtroom.</p>
<h3>'General Chitchat'</h3>
<p>On several occasions, Eissenstat, 56, passed through the judge's chambers or into a court staff room and engaged the judge and his staff in conversations, said Haralson's bailiff,&nbsp;Jessica Rodriguez. The conversations were “general chitchat,” Rodriguez said. “We're all pretty friendly around here.”</p>
<p>In a statement, Continental said Eissenstat “did not speak privately with Judge Haralson in his chambers, and his relationship with Judge Haralson is professional and no different than the other individuals present in his courtroom.”</p>
<p>To at least one witness, Eissenstat, a tall, slim career litigator, was an imposing presence. “Eric positioned himself in a very tactical way in the room, in the jury box, basically right on the witness's shoulder,” said a former associate of Harold's who testified in the case. “When the judge looks at the witness, he's also looking at Eric. It just seems intimidating.”</p>
<p>Reuters interviewed more than a dozen legal experts including family law attorneys, law professors, retired judges and marital dissolution consultants. All said that Eissenstat's level of involvement in his boss' divorce trial seemed uncommonly deep. Some said that the role Eissenstat – and by extension, Continental – played at the trial raises questions about whether the company supported the personal agenda of&nbsp;Harold Hamm, the company's top shareholder, to the detriment of other shareholders.&nbsp;</p>
<p>On Thursday, the day after Continental releases its quarterly earnings, analysts will have a chance to ask about the divorce case during a conference call the company is hosting.</p>
<p>“It sounds like the corporation is part of the divorce case,” said&nbsp;Arnold Rutkin, a lawyer at Rutkin Oldham in&nbsp;Connecticut. Rutkin represented the wife of&nbsp;Gary Wendt, a former chief executive at the General Electric Capital unit of GE, in one of the biggest U.S. divorces of the 1990s. “There are only two parties in a divorce: husband and wife.”</p>
<p>In that case, Rutkin said he did not recall GE Capital's attorneys playing anything close to the role that Eissenstat is playing in the&nbsp;Hamm&nbsp;divorce. A key difference in the cases is that although Wendt was a top executive, he wasn't a major owner of GE.&nbsp;Hamm&nbsp;owns about two-thirds of Continental.</p>
<p>Haralson did not respond to questions from Reuters. His bailiff said the judge would not speak publicly about the case before ruling.<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<h3>Major Role</h3>
<p>Continental, in its statement, said it "did not seek to participate in the divorce case." It was compelled to by&nbsp;Sue Ann, it said.</p>
<p>In a court filing last month, Continental said the extent of its involvement in the case may be unprecedented. It contends it has been required to turn over more documents and data than any company “has ever been forced to produce in divorce proceedings in&nbsp;Oklahoma&nbsp;and possibly the nation.”</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/545b605469beddbc2c042487-1200-800/rtr47iho.jpg" border="0" alt="Harold Hamm">Hamm&nbsp;started Continental in 1967, and about 68 percent of the firm's shares are in his name. His stake was worth more than $18 billion when the trial started in August. It's worth around $14 billion today.</p>
<p>Since the couple wed in 1988, Continental has grown from a smalltime driller worth less than $50 million into a $20 billion behemoth and one of&nbsp;Oklahoma's largest companies.</p>
<p>Because Harold owned his shares before he and&nbsp;Sue Ann&nbsp;were married, they belong to him. But under&nbsp;Oklahoma&nbsp;law, their “active” appreciation since 1988 is subject to “equitable distribution” with&nbsp;Sue Ann, a former executive at Continental who filed for divorce from Harold in 2012.</p>
<p>Her legal team contends that the amount of marital wealth the court should divide is more than $17 billion, a sum that included most of Harold's stake in Continental a few months before the trial began. Court filings show that his attorneys argued that the couple's shared wealth is a tiny fraction of that amount. The couple never signed a prenuptial agreement.</p>
<p>Harold Hamm's leadership at Continental is central to the case.</p>
<p>In court, his lawyers attributed most of Continental's success&nbsp;not to&nbsp;Hamm's business savvy but to factors beyond his control. If Haralson accepts the argument – that&nbsp;market factors such as rising oil prices, or decisions made prior to marriage caused Continental's growth – the award toSue Ann&nbsp;could be much smaller.</p>
<p>The trial ended on Oct. 9, and Haralson is poring over thousands of pages of evidence before he issues a judgment in the coming weeks, or the two sides settle. Last week, Haralson denied a motion by Reuters to intervene in the case to have trial transcripts and other records unsealed. The&nbsp;Oklahoma Supreme Court, which heard the Reuters request to unseal the records this week, has not yet ruled.</p>
<p>In a filing before those hearings, Continental said it opposed opening court records because the documents contain confidential business information, including strategic plans, board minutes, and highly sensitive information on its oil reserves, among other things.</p>
<p>“A corporate counsel would have a legitimate role in trying to keep confidential information about the company from being disseminated,” said&nbsp;Ilan Hirschfeld, head of the marital dissolution practice at the consultancy firm&nbsp;Marcum&nbsp;LLP in&nbsp;New Jersey.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/545b5ff26da8118c48009ade-1200-924/rtr47ihq.jpg" border="0" alt="Sue Ann Hamm">Continental may also have a significant interest in the outcome of the trial.</p>
<p>If&nbsp;Sue Ann, 58, wins a multi-billion dollar award, a judgment that size could prompt Harold to sell Continental shares, a move that could lead to a change in control of the company. In one court filing, Continental dismissed that possibility as "unfounded speculation."</p>
<p>Eissenstat, appointed as Continental's general counsel in 2010, previously had represented Continental and&nbsp;Harold Hamm&nbsp;personally during 27 years in private practice. As recently as 2010, he served as Harold's personal lawyer in a case involving&nbsp;Oklahoma&nbsp;oil and gas wells. Continental was not a party in that case.</p>
<p>As of Feb. 22, Eissenstat also owned shares in Continental valued at more than $7 million, SEC filings show.</p>
<p>Months before the&nbsp;Hamm&nbsp;divorce trial, Continental expanded Eissenstat's role at the firm, naming him its chief risk officer. The new responsibilities put Eissenstat in charge of keeping Continental out of corporate governance trouble and guarding against conflicts of interest and reputational damage – duties that would give Eissenstat reason to be concerned about the divorce trial.</p>
<p>In court filings, Continental said it was brought into the case by&nbsp;Sue Ann Hamm's broad and “abusive” demands for evidence from the company, and because dozens of its current or former employees were subpoenaed. “Continental doesn't like being here,” Eissenstat said at a pre-trial hearing, according to a transcript. Eissenstat told the judge he was only present in court to protect the firm's interests, not Harold's.</p>
<p>Allegations by&nbsp;Sue Ann's team that Continental meddled in the case to help Harold have been a sore point between the spouses.</p>
<p>In one court filing, his divorce attorneys wrote that the divorce is a matter of “common interest for Mr. Eissenstat,” citing his duty to “all shareholders to oversee any litigation impacting the company.” They added: “Harold Hamm&nbsp;and his counsel are frankly insulted by Petitioner's veiled suggestion of some collusion between them and (Continental) against her interests.”</p>
<p>Although Continental says it hasn't taken sides in the divorce, the company has taken unusual steps that could help Harold's case. In September, Reuters reported that the company revised its corporate history in ways that diminish the part&nbsp;Hamm&nbsp;played in its success. In downplaying the CEO's role, the firm recently deleted, added or revised at least 18 items on its website or in corporate filings, Reuters found.&nbsp;(http://reut.rs/1uYWqpH)&nbsp;</p>
<p>In addition, Continental has weighed in against&nbsp;Sue Ann. In one of the company's many filings in the case, a “friend-of-the-court” brief in February, Continental urged the judge to deny&nbsp;Sue Annadditional time to prepare for the trial.</p>
<p>“To say the least, it's highly unusual for a company to file a friend-of-the court brief in its CEO's closed-door divorce proceeding to oppose his wife's request for more trial preparation time,” said appellate attorney&nbsp;Lawrence Ebner, a Washington-based partner at law firm&nbsp;McKenna Long&nbsp;&amp; Aldridge.</p>
<p>Court records show that Haralson denied&nbsp;Sue Ann Hamm's request for another five months of trial preparation. Being hurried to trial could hurt her case, her lawyers contended in court filings, because they were racing to examine about 700,000 pages of uncategorized&nbsp;Continental documents that Eissenstat had delivered to them in response to evidence requests.</p>
<h3>'Enormous Expense'</h3>
<p>A spokeswoman for Continental,&nbsp;Kristin Miskovsky, has repeatedly said the divorce has had no effect on the company. “Mr.&nbsp;Hamm's divorce proceeding is a private matter and has not and is not anticipated to impact&nbsp;Continental Resources' business or operations,” the company said.</p>
<p>In one court filing, however, the company says its role in the case has come at “enormous expense.” Eissenstat and his in-house team handled discovery requests in the case. They have filed more than 40&nbsp;briefs, objections or motions&nbsp;in the divorce case.</p>
<p>“Mr.&nbsp;Hamm&nbsp;has an interest in winning, and Continental should not have an interest in&nbsp;Hammwinning per se,” said&nbsp;Paula Dalley, a professor of corporate law at&nbsp;Oklahoma City University Law School. “That's where a conflict of interest could arise. The outcome for&nbsp;Hamm&nbsp;personally shouldn't matter to the corporation.”</p>
<p>Former Continental employees who were deposed or called as witnesses told Reuters that the oil company paid for lawyers to represent them. The employees requested anonymity after signing agreements not to discuss their depositions or testimony.</p>
<p>It is not unusual for company lawyers to represent employees who will testify in legal cases about their work. But&nbsp;Judith Maute, a law professor at the&nbsp;University of Oklahoma, said that if Eissenstat and Continental used company resources to help Harold, it could draw the ire of other shareholders.&nbsp;</p>
<p>A general counsel's duty is to his corporation, not to the CEO's personal interests, she said. “If the general counsel is spending lots of time or company money to save the assets of the person, then he may be in breach of fiduciary duties to shareholders.”</p>
<p>Eissenstat's role and Continental's costly involvement in the marital dispute have not been disclosed in detail to the firm's shareholders. How much the company's board knows about Continental's participation in the Hamms' divorce isn't clear. Continental declined to address the question of whether it plans to bill&nbsp;Harold Hamm&nbsp;for the costs it's incurring related to the divorce case.</p>
<p>What is apparent is the trust the company has put in its top lawyer. Asked about Continental's involvement in the case,&nbsp;David Boren, the powerful&nbsp;Oklahoma&nbsp;politician who sits on Continental's board and testified in the divorce trial, had little to say.</p>
<p>“I have a policy not to make separate statements as a board member,” Boren said. “If you have any questions, please contact Eric Eissenstat.”</p>
<p>(This story has been refiled to restore the paragraphs that were dropped from some versions of this story)</p>
<p>(Reporting By&nbsp;Joshua Schneyer&nbsp;in&nbsp;Oklahoma City&nbsp;and&nbsp;Brian Grow&nbsp;in&nbsp;Atlanta. Editing by Blake Morrison and Michael Williams)</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-hotshot-lawyer-is-playing-an-extraordinary-role-in-one-of-the-biggest-divorce-cases-ever-2014-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>